


Till the Unseen Flame

by mysterycultist



Series: Till the Unseen Flame [1]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Blood Magic, Demonic Possession, Fear of Intimacy?, M/M, POV Multiple, Templar Carver Hawke, discussion of trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-14 02:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5726614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysterycultist/pseuds/mysterycultist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I wouldn't have done well in the Circle, Father told me that. They wouldn't've even let me try the Harrowing." He presses a fist to his forehead: <em>hiss.</em></p><p>"You're a little too sure," you say.</p><p>  <em>A sweet & tender story about a sad man who falls in love with Destruction, with asides from Destruction's brother, who must challenge the sad man for the right to kill Destruction in the Final Chapter.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: In Memoriam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blessed is he whose life has not tasted of evil.  
> When God has shaken a house, the winds of madness  
> Lash its breed until the breed is done.
> 
> -Antigone, trans. E.R. Dodds

 I. CARVER

You were injured at Ostagar. Badly. You remember feeling the tip of the spear pop through the back of your shoulder and the pain in your chest whenever the shaft moved or bent, or whenever you moved or bent, or whenever. You'd never been on your own before you left to join Cailan's army, but you made the long walk to Ostagar alone, signed your name on the enlistment form alone, sat by the bonfire sharpening your sword with the thousand wilders, career soldiers, Templars, even the Wardens shuffling around on their own and the circle mages in their own camp with the hiss and pop of their spells, all around you, alone, and you were stationed near the back of that dark battlefield and over the heads of a hundred men you saw the ogres, you heard the shrieks. 

You were injured on the retreat by one of the darkspawn scouts that were chasing runners, and you would've died--been dragged off, turned ghoulish--if not for an old woman you'd never even spoken to. She slung your arm over her shoulders and helped you to the cave to the north where the Circle of Magi were holed up. She convinced them to bring down the spell barrier and let you and some other survivors in, and a spirit healer took the spear out. You didn't get the taint and the wound didn't fester, but it was a week before you were moving again, and by the time you could see Lothering's windmill rising over the hills past the Imperial Highway, the darkspawn had arrived. 

Mother said she begged Garrett to leave days ago, when the refugees started swarming the Chantry in town and most of the locals were packing up their carts and fleeing. She begged your forgiveness when she told you this, later in Kirkwall, but she'd heard that everyone at Ostagar was slaughtered. She didn't want to risk her other children's survival when you were probably dead. 

Garrett didn't leave. You wonder if he still would've waited for you if he knew, back then, that he was making the choice between you and Bethany. You don't think you'd want him to, but there's no changing the past. 

Garrett had been holding back the horde for three days. You didn't learn what that meant until years later: the night after the first genlock was spotted on the road, the Templars left with the sisters and the two orphans they'd taken in after that Qunari massacre. They posted notice that the town was to be evacuated on the Chantry door, but that was as much as they'd do for the refugees. Scores of them were left in the fields, the street, the tavern, and on top of that at least three other local families had stayed on their land. They were lambs for the slaughter. Apparently, a few got away. Garrett tried to save all of them. 

He told Mother, while she was begging him to leave you for dead, that he was sure, completely, that you would show up because you were a Hawke and Hawkes take care of themselves first. Hawkes know when it's time to run, and Hawkes run. He'd see you coming down the road any minute now. 

Hawkes take care of themselves first, but in a single day Garrett burned through all the lyrium that Father left behind trying to defend an entire hamlet instead of defending one house, three people. All the good it did him. 

Fire raining from the sky, hurlocks encased in solid blocks of ice, the force of raw magic crashing down on the darkspawn and flattening the oak trees near the house, carts and fences in town, and you imagine the shock on his face, the utter disbelief in his eyes, when all his magic, all his power could do nothing to stem the flood. He didn't tell you about this until years later: his nose was busted where your gauntlet had cracked into it and you were both sitting on the cold stone steps of the servants' entrance in the back of the estate, in smoky light from the torch burning overhead. He told you about the woman screaming as she was dragged away, and screaming more when the fire he threw at the darkspawn lit on her clothes and hair. He told you about the three children he put on your old Amaranthine Charger and watched disappear into the hills, hoping that they might make it to South Reach. Nothing could stop the horde. 

You could've told him that years ago: you saw the corruption run over ten battalions of seasoned warriors, your greatsword slicing through them like a knife through water, a dozen battle-trained mages as useless as a cup of water over an inferno. You could've told him how stupid he was to be ashamed. 

The town was gone when you reached it and Garrett and Bethany had been awake three days and three nights defending the house. The first time you saw your brother after Ostagar, blood was pouring up his arms, flowing up to the elbow, encasing his hands like shining red gloves, and a dark scarlet haze covered what was once the corn field, where a score of hurlocks were tearing themselves to pieces, clawing their faces to bone and retching black intestines onto the scorched earth. He was at the crest of the hill to the south of the house: the roof peaked just behind him, and the land blocked him from all the back windows' views. But you saw him. You were hiding in a copse of charred trees.  

When the last darkspawn fell, he lowered his arms and his blood dripped from his fingers to the ground. He pressed his hands to the worst cuts, deep in either bicep just above the elbow, and the bleeding seemed to stop. You left the cover of the trees and crossed the field, over the darkspawn bodies soaking the soil with black blood that drained from every orifice, and came to a stop about ten paces from your brother.  

It's funny to you now--you didn't even think of running, or going around to the house to see if Mother and Bethany were still alive, even though you were scared shitless and thought he might've killed them.  

You said, "Brother," and couldn't think of anything else. 

He looked up from his arm and snarled, "You took too long." 

You figured that this, the Blight, was when he made the deal, but he'd been this way for years and years and you hadn't even known. He insists that Bethany never found out but she was always smarter than both of you, especially when it came to magic. When you were fifteen she started changing, getting quieter, more nervous, her eyes always wide open and watching everything with unfaltering care: especially Garrett, always Garrett. And you figured this was because Father was dead and if Garrett died, too, she'd be all alone. But now you think maybe there was something else. 

 _She never knew, Carver, now drop it._  

He cleaned his arms off on a shirt that he threw to the ground after and the two of you rushed to the house to get the others. You said nothing while you ran from the farm, from Lothering, and he didn't open up his cuts again. You said nothing when the ogre caught your sister and you saw her chest collapse in its grip. You saw a shimmering wave of force magic wash over its back like a breeze, and you saw her head slammed into the ground, and you saw her tossed aside. 

And you didn't say anything after. You didn't say anything standing over her crushed up body, her snapped neck, her skull broken beneath her hair, but you thought-- 

What good is it? What good is it if you can't save her? You coward, you coward, you couldn't open a vein for your own damn sister. You coward, you could've stopped it. 

Garrett knelt over her body while Mother sobbed, completely incoherent and cursing him with words you'd never heard her say, words unimaginable from her mouth. Your every muscle was cut off from your mind, paralyzed by a hate so consuming you can't even think about it. You saw his hand hovering over her neck, her neck bathed in blood where her collar bone broke out of her skin, and it shook until he set it down on the wound. When he lifted it the blood was still there, the bone was still there, and your sister did not wake up. 

You didn't say anything when he drove the knife under that Templar's chest plate but you thought, _coward._  

If the Templar had turned on him for saving Bethany with blood magic, it would've been worth it. It would've been worth it, but it didn't even matter because the blighter was bloody dead anyway. You know Garrett killed him instead of letting Aveline do it because Garrett hated him for making him hesitate, and that makes Garrett a coward. You remember him rubbing the tears from his eyes and smearing Wesley's blood over his face by mistake. 

For days travelling to Gwaren, you said nothing. Days in the hold of that stinking boat, and you said nothing. They had all of you refugees camping in the Gallows courtyard, the mages' prison, for days while you waited for word from your uncle, and in a quiet corner by the docks, over the water, you watched him unravel the wraps on his arms to look at his cuts, which were infected by the looks of it, and you said out loud--What good were they if he couldn't use them to save Bethany? 

Garrett looked you straight in the eye and said, "I don't know what you're talking about." And he walked right past you. 

Father always said that if a mage used blood magic for a crutch once, he would never stop using it. He would always go back to it, without fail, but you never saw Garrett use it again. Athenril gave him a poultice and his cuts healed to thin white lines, and though you'd look every morning and every night when the two of you ate by the fire in Gamlen's house, every day when he reached over the counter of a stall to drop coin in some merchant's hand, every chance you got, no new cuts appeared that couldn't be explained away--That knife fight that broke out in the warehouse last week, just a scratch from the dog. Nothing suspicious. Scrapes and white lines above the elbow. 

And if he caught you checking, he'd give you this curious little sorry look that made you want to scream. He wanted you to think it was all in your head, that you made it up when you were battle-shocked. Fuck him, you know what you saw. 

You got a letter from one of your old friends, one who fled before you even set off for Cailan's army, said she'd heard one of the survivors, one of the ones who got away last, was a singer now in West Hill, and in the tavern where she worked she sang a song every single night called "The Mage of Lothering," and did you happen to know what that might be about? 

There were three mages in Lothering, but only one made it out. He made it out in pieces of what he was. Maybe you're not mad at Garrett for not saving her, but because _you_ couldn't do a thing to save any of them. 

 _You took too long,_ he said, and you didn't know that Garrett was lost years before the Fifth Blight was a thought in anyone's head. All the time you spent in the yard carving up scarecrows with your old blade so you'd be ready when the mob came for them, when the Templars came for them, but you'd never spared a thought to the threat in their own minds. Father fell to blight and there was nothing you could do, Bethany threw herself at an ogre and there was nothing you could do, but you can stop blood magic now. Now, you guard the mages in the Circle, and they know what will happen if they risk blood magic: if they risk demons, they know the consequences will be sure and immediate, so they don't. It's not perfect. But it's something you can do to save them.


	2. Last Call

II. FENRIS

You remember standing in the rain after a night at the Hanged Man, when Gamlen locked him out of the house. Hawke had already smiled and thanked you for seeing him home, even though he didn't need the protection. He could take care of himself, he'd said, snapping his fingers as his hand lit on fire, and you'd watched from the bottom of the stairs as he pulled at the latch and shoved at the door.  

"Problem?"  

"No problem, just give me a second."  

He turned to smile at you; you smiled back. You weren't his friend, back then. You kept smiling while he fell to a scowl, banging at the door that had been painted up with threats for his uncle, trying to keep his voice at a decent volume as he called for his mother, Uncle Gamlen, Carver-- _I know you can hear me, you little cretin_ \--Champion, his dog-- _good boy, smart boy,_ loyal  _boy--_ who you later learned had pulled a whole raw turkey off the table and fallen into hibernation while Hawke was out. Carver, in his grief, had downed a whole bottle of the weak red Gamlen keeps stocked and passed out cold. The other two were just heavy sleepers, you assume.  

"You could always melt the lock."  

"I really would, but I can't afford to replace it." He'd spent everything on the turkey.  

It had been grand until the rain started, and you stopped smiling, too.  

This is you: you are standing in the rain, suddenly uneasy with how drunk you are, water pooling around your toes and you ask Hawke, “Where are you going to sleep tonight?” Because you know that you, at least, have a place to go.  

And this feels infinitely strange to you.  

He taps the flat of his hand against the door, three times, watching the rain hit the dust at his feet, thinking the same thing that you are: that it is later than it was when you left the tavern, and it's darker. He looks up. “Hanged Man.”  

“You’re going to walk me there?” he asks, and this is what will be different: in a few more years, he will not accept help, much less ask for it.  

But you don't make it past the alley behind Gamlen's hovel before you're jumped. You have travelled from one end of the continent to the other, you have personally prevented more assassination attempts than you can remember, you actively have a price on your head and still, the violence in Lowtown continues to astound you.  

One drops from a window onto Hawke; Hawke says "oof" and hits the ground. You step to the side and another man falls to the ground where you were just standing. Before he stands you bash your heel into his face, pull the attacker off Hawke--There's a gash on his arm and a cut at his neck, but before they could do any real damage he'd gotten a grip on their wrist: now, their tunic is on fire.  

Something bites into your calf and suddenly, you can't breathe. You keep moving anyway.  

There are eight more attackers, in all. A girl with her front teeth missing and a mace in her hand catches your eye--She can't be more than fourteen.  

Hawke is on his feet and the peasant's knife he carries is in the burning man's neck. You twist around and seize the one who stabbed your leg by the tunic; his nose is a bloody fountain and he's sobbing when you punch into his chest and rip his heart out.  

The whistle of an arrow, the clatter of it hitting a wall; a flash of fire and the rush of it on the air, and screaming. The Dog Lords--You can see, now, by the collars--scatter, apparently unwilling to die for this, but that doesn't mean they won't shoot another arrow or throw another knife when your guard appears to be down.  

You drop the heart in your hand; it slaps against the thin mud and the hard ground, already beginning to pale in the wash of rain. You always wonder about who finds those. It can't always be cats.  

"The Dog Lords," Hawke explains, unnecessarily. Blood is streaming down from his lip and from the scrapes at his brow and cheek, and his breath is short, stammering. "They just wanted to scare me. I'm late on a payment, they just want their money--if they really wanted me dead, they'd've called in the Templars." He presses a hand to his arm, looks up to the sky and says, "Thank the Maker for the rain."  

Because, in fact, those daggers were coated in magebane, and the rain flushing it out of his cuts is the only reason Hawke is still standing.  

But they don't  _really_ want him dead.  

(If you were to have offered him honest advice, you would have told him to run then. He'd stayed in Kirkwall too long, that was obvious--Just as you had stayed too long.)  

All the same, he offers to carry you. If you didn't care for his life you might've let him try. As it is, he can barely hold up as your crutch: the rain running pink off both of you, the sky dark and only a few smoky torches still lit under awnings, the blood like red tea and the night like wet firewood, him swearing and you hobbling on one leg. You could only make it to the next hex.  

"This is my armorer's place," he says, dropping his weight against the door and banging on it with a fist. "It's Hawke! Let me in, I'm dying!"  

No one answers.  

Hawke acts very confident in himself and his magic and will not hesitate to put on a show of it, so it took you a while to realize that though he is a powerful mage, to be sure, he's not a skilled mage. He does a few things well--setting things on fire, freezing things, occasionally slapping things across the room with big gusts of air--but he only does a few things, over and over again, and he burns himself, and when he burns himself he wraps it in a bandage. More subtle magics, like "creationism" or whatever it's called, are lost on him, which is why you still have a knife in your leg.   

You have opinions regarding all this. It should disturb you that he has so little control of himself--everyone who's ever gone into battle with him has been burned by him. Actually, it's one of the things you like about him.  

Skilled mages always push it further. Skilled mages want to be gods. Hawke pretends to be immortal, but he seems happy enough to cast an ice spell without giving himself frostbite.  

 _(I know I_ _wouldn't've_ _done well in the circle,_ _Father_ _told me that. They wouldn't've even let me try the Harrowing. He presses a fist to his forehead: hiss._   

 _You're a little too sure, you say.)_   

You catch your breath against the wall, the metal of your pauldrons making a sound against the rough stone wall like sand between teeth. You have felt far, far worse, but it's a knife in your leg and the blood is coming heavy, throbbing with every pulse, every movement. Something like this happened to you near Brynnlaw--an arrow in your shoulder, where you now wear heavy metal spikes. Your injuries were always attended to by mage healers, when you were a slave--you were too valuable to be allowed to cripple or die--and in Seheron, nothing like this had happened. You pulled it out, like a fool. You were not prepared for the amount of blood.   

You tied your belt above the wound and dragged yourself a mile farther into the country before you were desperate enough to knock on a door with a sign hung above it painted with a picture of elfroot.  Apparently, you were almost dead. The healer there stopped the bleeding with a poultice and you paid him, with what coin you had--Not much, then--But still, the bounty hunters were there at nightfall. You knew they were coming. He'd given you care and a bed and a meal in the evening, but you hadn't given him enough coin.  

You look beside you and Hawke is slouched against the wall, eyes closed to the rain. He taps his fist against the door.  

"It's because I'm behind on my payments." He opens his eyes and smiles. "If I was caught up on my payments, I'm telling you, she'd be so nice..." He turns his head, smiling at you now. "We'd be by the fire, bandaged up, sailing smooth... Oh, she'd be lovey-dovey."  

"You didn't," you say. "And she isn't."  

"Too true."   

Your good leg is tiring, and even if you aren't putting weight on it your wounded leg is going numb. Cold, yet still somehow burning. He slides to the ground and you know that if you followed him it would be difficult to stand again, so you stay standing. You need to keep moving, but you tell yourself you still have time to breathe--The air is freezing, with the rain.  

"Should've expected it," Hawke murmurs, quiet enough that you know he's talking to himself, not you. "Didn't want to waste the money when the expedition's leaving in a week, should've expected the kickback. Won't matter after the expedition, though. After that, no one in Lowtown will be able to touch me."  

Even bleeding in the rain, you have the energy to sneer.  

He's paying off three gangs, his armor merchant and the old woman who lives above him to keep them from informing the Templars they'd seen him use magic. "Stop using magic," you told him. "Okay," he said, conjuring water from his palm into his glass and taking a drink.  

Varric is shouldering the other mages' bribes. If he knows about Hawke's, he knows better than to offer aid.  

You're telling him, "The people in Hightown will just cost more to silence," when you hear a clatter like steel and a hushed voice in the dark of the alley facing you. Hawke gets to his feet and you shove off the wall; once again, you only get to the next hex. He veers into a wall and grips his arm; you let go of him and swear.  

"This is pathetic."  

"You're pathetic," he counters, face pressed against the wall. "You don't have a potion?"  

You curse him; he parrots it back as "pasta boss." "Your leg is completely fucked. That's bleeding the wrong way, it hit something. We need Anders," he says.   

"Darktown is too far. We go to the tavern and deal with the rest from there."  

"The tavern is up a flight of stairs. I can't carry you, you're going to walk there?"  

"I walk or I bleed out in the alley. I'll walk."  

"No, no, wait." He grimaces and looks somewhere to your left. "This is ridiculous," he mumbles.  

 Your head is swimming--that knife had more than magebane on it. All you're thinking is,  _They d_ _idn_ _'t_ really  _want him dead._   

Hawke stumbles closer to you and gestures at your leg. The blood from his arm is dripping down his red hand, off his fingers. "Do you trust me?" he asks.  

"Why."  

"I can get this out of your leg."  

"You can rip this out of my leg and I'll bleed out all the faster. I'll walk."  

"I can heal it. I know I've said I can't do healing, I know--It's complicated. I can do it, it's just. Difficult."  

"You inspire confidence."  

"I won't cripple you, Maker's breath."  

You let him take the knife out. It's a poor choice you blame on the ale. Sitting in the mud, in the rain, you watch the street for attackers while he grips your leg with one hand and the hilt of the knife with the other. He mumbles,  _Easy, j_ _ust like riding a horse,_  and you want to kill him, and you focus on that thought when the blade rips out.  

Pain.  

Immediately you feel a pressure on your leg and brace yourself for more.  

You feel something. You do not feel what you should be feeling.  

What you should be feeling is agony. Your skin on fire, the lyrium activating at the touch of magic, your breath going thin and your body, flicking away to somewhere incredibly light; in all this time you still haven't decided if it's  _weightlessness_ or  _massive gravity_.  

What you feel is pain. It's terrible. But it isn't agony.  

The pain fades to an ache. Your leg, when you examine it, has a faint scar where the blade was, but is otherwise unmangled.  

"How does that feel?"  

You grunt and get up to test your weight on it. Hawke grins, still on his knees.   

"Didn't expect me to do that right, did you?"  

"I'm more offended that you've been letting me bleed all this time."  

"Well." He stands, waving his hand until it glows a faint red and pressing it to his shoulder, which is still gushing blood down the length of his arm. Sparks of flame lick at the skin, between his fingers. "I did say it wasn't easy." His hand removed, the skin around the cauterized wound swells and starts to blister; he gives the same treatment, somewhat gentler, to the cut on his neck. "Still need a potion to clear the magebane out, but at least I'm not bleeding. Anders hates it when I do this." He shrugs. "Never killed me yet, though."  

You press your weight onto your healed leg again, anxiously, bothered by something you can't articulate. He looks paler, unsteady. "Yes," you say. "So it seems."  

Hawke cringes and laughs. "Oh."  

What bothers you about him--though this is not the thing bothering you now--is not that there is such a thick wall between him and anyone in the world, but that he pretends that there isn't. Right now, he's looking at you as if you were standing somewhere to your left. Rain is pouring down his face and weighing down his carefully styled beard, and the kaddis on his nose is beginning to wear away. This is also disturbing to you. Everything disturbs you.   

"Hawke," you rasp. His name is all dry consonants, like burnt paper. "How old are you?"  

He blinks, but shrugs again and answers, "Twenty-four. How old are you?"  

"I don't know. Older than you."  

"You're just saying that to be rude."  

"Will you live to see twenty-five, I wonder?"  

"Neither of us will see me to twenty-five, at this rate."  

He did live that long, at least.  

 

* * *

 

Varric hosts a sending-off celebration at the Hanged Man the night before his expedition is to leave for the Vimmarks. In addition to the usual crowd of pirates, smugglers and slumming merchant princes, half of Lowtown flocks there at the promise of free snacks; the bar became intolerable hours ago. Smoke thick enough to blind, Isabela down to her smallclothes on the table trying to convince people to throw money at her, Anders this close to joining her--  

Much of the party spills into the street. Someone is strumming a song you know but can't name, and when Hawke notices you watching him twirl his  _halberd_ from hand to hand, he grins and spins it on one finger over his head, then quickly behind his back, which looks impressive until he knocks someone in the head with the blunt end. He's trying to convince you to dance with him.  

"You might never see me again," he reminds you.  

"If only," you say. You are not quite his friend yet, but you don't mean this. You remember looking back to his hands every few minutes, never quite able to picture it. People are two-stepping and jigging right in front of you, but whenever you try to imagine yourself dancing for some reason you can only think of the slow processions you'd seen at Danarius's balls: the minuet, the basse danse. You can't picture it.  

"Just wait," he says. "In a week Varric will come screeching back from the Deep Roads and you'll find out he was the sole survivor after a horde of ogres fell on our expedition. He and I fought our way through, and I could've made it out but I sacrificed myself to make sure none of the darkspawn chased after Varric, and he'll tell you that my last wish--my last wish before I died--heroically--was that you, Fenris, save one dance for... My brother. And you'll have to two-step with Carver, and Carver once broke a girl's foot trying to two-step her."  

"Won't Carver have died in the ogre massacre with the rest of you?"  

He blinks and cocks his head. "What?"  

"You said Varric was the only one to survive the expedition."  

"Yes, but Carver won’t be on the expedition."  

"Carver has been saying all night that he's leaving on your expedition tomorrow."  

Hawke says "what" and leaves. You don't see him again until sunrise when he knocks on your door. This is how you agree to venture into the Deep Roads.  

Bartrand insisted that Hawke bring no more than two "extras" on the expedition: ostensibly, because he's paranoid they'll try to divide the profits further (You are getting paid, but this is coming out of Hawke and Varric's pockets). Hawke thinks Bartrand's going to shove him into a lava drop the second his guard's down.   

Apparently there was a terrible argument about this.   

"Terrible, just terrible." Hawke shakes his head. "Little bugger got up on a table and stuck a knife to my throat. Shrieking, like a shriek. Those horrific pale little eyes, absolutely insane, completely off the wall, and the  _smell_... The man doesn't care for his teeth, that's all I'll say. Never respected Varric more, seeing what he's lived with all these years. Brave little man."   

(Later you ask Varric about this. He closes his eyes as if suddenly exhausted. "Yeah," he says. "Hawke almost killed my brother. Had to buy Bartrand a wig... You know, I don't want to talk about it.")   

Hawke asked Anders, the Warden abomination, and Aveline, the Guard-Captain, to accompany him. Carver, last week, told Aveline she wasn't needed and Aveline made other commitments. Somehow she and Hawke never spoke of it in the meantime.  

("Well, I wondered why she was giving me the silent treatment, yes. But I was just hoping it was the same old same old and it'd blow over by the expedition if I just kept my mouth shut. She and I have known each other a while, you know... There's a rhythm... You don't mess with a good rhythm.")  

"Your brother seems eager to accompany you," you say.  

"But he won't," Hawke says.   

This is the problem, as he sees it:  

"Bartrand has a whole team of Red Iron sellswords on payroll, but I'm looking at all those as potential hostiles--Worst case scenario, it's just me and my party against the horde, I want to be prepared. Also, I had some bad deals with the Red Irons before that I won't go into but probably at least one is, regardless of Bartrand, going to try and shove me into a lava drop. Those are the facts.  

"So, I don't want anyone to die. Anders is a Warden, so he's probably okay, and Varric is an archer, so if he keeps back he shouldn't be a problem, but the thing is--Someone has to hold the darkspawn back for the archer and the healer, and I can only do so much with my. Ahem.  _Halberd._   

"Isabela uses knives and Anders says that kind always gets blighted sooner or later. Gets in the mouth, like--" He bares his teeth and makes a gesture. You nod. "So the only swordsman left in the city who I trust with his blade and isn't my brother or married to her job is you."  

"You trust me, Hawke?"  

"I trust you with your sword, yes. Do you trust me with this?" He takes his staff from where it's resting by your door and tries to spin it, immediately catching the candle on the sconce nearby with the blade and knocking it to the ground.  

 

* * *

 

The expedition was supposed to leave in the morning but Varric gets it pushed back to the afternoon--It can leave no later than that for "tax reasons."  

You were supposed to get some rest, but you've been pacing the mansion, room by room. (Fifteen rooms, thirty-four windows, a front door and a back exit. Your routine is to check each room, window and door twice when you get home, twice before you sleep, and twice periodically through the night when you can't sleep.) You're not afraid, neither of death nor darkspawn, but you do wonder what you're doing.  

Getting paid, you remind yourself.  

Of all the places you've been, you've never been underground before.  

You're at Hawke's door by noon.  _Thanks for the snacks_ is now scratched into the rust.   

He opens the door a crack and looks out. "Fenris," he whispers, and you begin to speak but he shushes you in earnest.   

A woman's voice calls out to ask who's at the door, Gamlen and Carver echo--Gamlen adding, "And if it's--anyone, actually, I'm not home."  

Hawke shuts his eyes. "No one," he shouts. "Don't worry about it! No one!" And slips out to the stoop, closing the door behind him. "I needed to talk to you," he says, and slams his fist back at the door when Carver yells,  

"It's him, isn't it?"  

"It's the tax man! It's the tax man, he's here to collect! Leave it!"  

The door opens; Carver stands in the entryway and sets his hands on his hips. Hawke slouches against the wall, glowering at him.  

"You happy? Carver?"  

"Yeah." Carver nods. "That's what I thought. Huh."  

He's looking you up and down, and your skin pricks. "What?" you snarl.  

"Just trying to figure out what makes you so much better than me." He purses his lips and shrugs. "Can't figure it. Don't even wear shoes, second you cut your foot down there you're blighted."  

" _Carver._ "  

"'S true. Elf's gonna be dead. Just facts."  

Hawke moves between you and his brother. You're irritated but in no way tempted to start a brawl on Hawke's doorstep--Carver, on the other hand...

"Carver," Hawke says, voice low. "Your  _mother--_ "  

"Oh, stuff it." Carver turns and stalks back inside. Hawke turns and smiles at you.  

"All day," he mouths. "All day."  

You look behind him into the house, and he follows your gaze.  

In the dark of the house is a pale woman with grey hair and eyes red from, you would guess, crying. Her hands are clasped in front of her, and her head is tilted very slightly to the side.  

"Garrett," she says. "Are you going to introduce your friend?"  

Hawke's eyes dart from his mother to you. You clear your throat, but he speaks before you have to.  

"Mother," he says, gesturing broadly. "This is Fenris. He's from Tevinter. His favorite color is blue. Fenris, this is my Lady Mother, Leandra Hawke. Her favorite color is also blue. Now, you're introduced, and I hate to run, but we've really--"  

"Fenris." The severe set of her mouth softens when she smiles, but her eyes remain heavy; there are still grim lines around her lips and on her brow. "I've heard a lot about you, Fenris. Today, especially."  

You're not sure what to do, so you nod to her.   

"Why don't you come in, Fenris?" she says, and Hawke hisses. She gives him a sharp look. "I'm sure Carver will behave himself.  We're all a little upset about Garrett leaving, but we're still  _civilized._ "  

You have no desire to stay where you aren't wanted, but your impulse is to do whatever will annoy Hawke.  

He's looking at you, cutting his hand back and forth behind the door, where his mother can't see.  _No,_ the gesture says.  _Please. Don't._   

"I thank you for your hospitality," you say. Leandra's smile widens. Hawke's tightens.  

As if you would disappoint a beautiful woman for Garrett Hawke's sake.   

Their house is the size of the room where you sleep: the ceiling is low, and smoke rises to it from the hearth, from the tallow candles, and you would guess by the smell from something else, more herbal. On the floor is a brightly woven rug, elaborate and blue but dimmed with mud, and on the wall are several paintings--Landscapes, a house built behind a hill and deep green trees rising in the foreground, mountains and aqueducts, a silver castle on a cliff's edge--and on the desk is a small portrait of a man you immediately recognize as Hawke--But then, you realize, is too old and too clean-shaven, his skin a shade darker. Carver is at the table with his boots kicked up beside a tray of bread and fruit, and the old man is whittling in a chair by the fire, wood chips scattered around him; he glances up and sneers by way of greeting you. Leandra is pointedly avoiding the sight of them.   

Behind a closed door the dog is clawing and barking madly.  

Hawke strides past you and takes a quarter wheel of white cheese out of a cupboard, which he slices, then goes to the table and tears a chunk off the bread there. He puts these in your hands. You accept them for lack of anything better to do about it.  

"Here you are, Fenris," he says. "Treated to the hospitality of a noble house, salt and bread, everything in order."  

His mother takes a steadying breath. "Garrett, now you're just being rude."  

You have no idea what salt and bread is supposed to signify. "I'm honored," you say flatly. He gives you a thumbs up, which means something different here than it does in Tevinter.  

"Only Fereldens do the salt and bread, dummy." Gamlen shakes his head and spits at the floor. "Maferath's steaming yellow underdrawers, Leandra, you want to restore the family name, but if you do he'll just pull out the salt and bread and drive it right back into the ground, what's the bleeding point?" He throws his knife at the table beside him and stands. "Salt and bread. Pah."  

"How uncivilized of me, Nuncle!"

Gamlen waves him off and slams the door of the room not holding the dog behind him. Over the barking--now in greater earnest--Hawke continues, "Best keep me out of sight, or next thing you know I'll be on my hands and knees chowing at the dog dish, and what would the company think of  _that_?"

"What would you think of that?" he asks, suddenly speaking to you.   

You don't give that the dignity of a response. He cocks his head, waiting.  

At the table, Carver snorts. His mother asks him what's the matter; he just shakes his head. With his nose wrinkled that way he is the spitting image of his uncle.  

"Well." Hawke claps his hands together. "Fenris, sorry to cut the fun short, but I really do need to steal you for a second--Right in here, then you and Mother can shoot the breeze all the live-long day." He goes to the door where the dog is scratching and indicates for you to follow, and you do--Silently grateful for an exit.  

What you experienced was not a total loss. Your name, your memories, some words, and skills you must have had--Swordsmanship, you had to be taught again--A master brought in at great expense, great punishment to you for the frustration; some instinct remained but key techniques had dropped out of your head, they hadn't anticipated it--But you did not become a blank slate. Language remained. You saw faces and knew them, though you couldn't say their names; just so, even now you'll see a plant, a bird, a dish, and you'll say the word but have no idea how you know it. Elvish words, in particular. Songs you hear in the Alienage, very rarely, will fall on you like a sudden smoke and you will have to find somewhere quiet to stay until your mind is your own again. Or the music just brushes you, a faint itch in your lungs that lingers.  

So it stands to reason that you should have some instinct--Some recollection, some familiarity with the workings of a family. It has not occurred to you to wonder about this. In there, you were completely lost. All you felt was baffled.  

Your pulse is racing in your ears, though you are completely calm.  

Hawke closes the door behind you.  

The dog jumps up at you, claws slipping at your chest plate and digging into your stomach, licking your chin frantically. For some reason you imagine this is what dancing with Hawke would've been like. You give him the bread and cheese.  

"I have gear for you," Hawke says, crouching to reach under the bunk bed.  

"Is something wrong with your dog?"  

"You mean, why's he locked away like a queen in a fort? Yes, suddenly Carver hates my dog. But you know what? He's just jealous because the dog didn't choose him. Isn't that right, boy? Carver's just jealous of our special bond, isn't he, Champion?" Forgetting his task, Hawke lets his dog knock him on his back and slather him with drool while he babbles nonsense at it.  

His room is big enough to fit the bunks, a hearth, a wooden crate with a lit candle and a handful of rings and small jewels scattered on top of it, and a wooden barrel holding three mage's staves and a claymore. There is a stack of books by the beds, another intricate rug on the floor, and Carver's greatsword mounted on the wall; the window, high near the ceiling, is covered by a worn woolen blanket nailed in place. Hawke's peasant knife, you notice, is sheathed in the wall instead of its handle. He must have gotten mad at it again.  

"Hawke," you say. "I didn't just come here to meet your mother."  

"Wait a minute," he says, shoving the dog off, and slides a visored helm out onto the floor. "Found this on the coast. Think it'll fit all right?"  

You pick it up and turn it in your hands. "Yes."  

"You can fight wearing one of these, then?"  

"I prefer not to."  

"Best if you do. Blight's an ugly business, better to keep it off your teeth and such. And these--" He pulls out a pair of boots and raises a hand. "Hear me out."  

"I'll wear them."  

"I thought I'd have to fight you there."  

"I'm not a stereotype, Hawke."  

"I had to hunt for these. They have especially thin soles, soft nugskin, I went to three different merchants until I found  _black-dyed_  nugskin, because I didn't think you'd wear them otherwise. The only reason I knew how to size it is because of that time Isabela got you to try on her boots. I want you to understand--I went to the Hanged Man and  _stole one of_ _Isabela's_ _boots_ _._ "  

"You could have told me what you were doing, I would've bought them myself."  

"Yes." He scratches his nose and scowls at the boots in his hand. His dog, ears set back on its head, whines. "So it seems. But I thought you were sleeping... So that makes two of us, going in restless. Restless, and without rest. You came here for a reason, what's your reason?"  

"I need to tell you. If I die in the Deep Roads and you live, I want you to give what you would've paid me to the Templar Order."  

The dog's ears snap to attention; he quickly flattens them again and bares his teeth at you. You hiss at it, and it stops--But keeps watch on you, growling softly.  

Hawke watches this exchange gravely from the floor. He sets the boots down. "Now. Don't you think it's petty for your last request to be something you just said to be rude?"  

"I mean that."  

He taps his fingers on the floor in front of him, aggravating the layer of dirt. The look on his face recalls his mother.   

"Far be it from me to deny your last request, then." His tone is flat.  

"Indeed."  

"You did just say it to be rude, though."  

You're opening your mouth to say something truly rude when, from the other room, Carver shouts--  

"Hey, Fenris? Just a question--Were you at Ostagar? Nah?"  

Hawke lunges to his feet. " _Carver_ _!_ " You step aside as he barrels past you to throw the door open. "I swear on my _life_ , Carver, you can throw as many tantrums as you want:  _You're not going into the Deep Roads._  So stow it! Andraste's fucking ashes!"  

" _You_  weren't at Ostagar, _that's_  for damn sure."  

Hawke steps back into the bedroom and asks you, "Do you want to leave?"  

Outside, you tell him again that for all his faults, his brother is a formidable warrior. "And I cannot say I have the experience with darkspawn that he does."  

Hawke does not seem to hear you. Humming, he ambles over to lean on the top of the pillar that corners the stoop, and looks out at the hex. From a window of the building facing you, a man with curling hair that falls into his eyes is pulling leaves from a scrawny plant hanging from the sill; below him, three women, two older and one young, each peeling an apple, sit in chairs smoking pipes: one of the grey-haired ones is barefoot, despite the cold, and her brows over her eyes are like snowdrifts over a mountain face. At the foot of the stairs leading to the stoop you stand on, a group of children are throwing rope tied into rings at the spikes studding the stairway; two more children, younger, chase each other while the old woman who extrorts Hawke watches them, leaning against the archway with her hands in her apron pockets.   

The cold seems to freshen the air in Lowtown: the stink of the waste piling the streets doesn't carry so far when it isn't festering in the summer heat, and the sky is blue and clear, so people are outside. This could be a worse last breath of open air, to be certain.  

"My sister was killed by darkspawn," Hawke says suddenly. "I've told you that?"  

"You said she died during the Blight. I assumed."  

"Yes, well. It was my fault, really. Not to go too deep into it. But I know that if I let Carver come with us he'll die, just because I don't want him to. So, he stays here."  

You shift your weight from foot to foot. When these things are brought up you feel like you did when you were learning Qunlat and had to grasp for words you didn't know from some space outside of your mind; you feel like you do in the dreams where Danarius finally finds you and you realize you left your sword behind somewhere. You try not to think about it. "That is your decision," you say. "I wouldn't argue with you."  

He looks back, chin resting on his shoulder, and smiles. "You don't talk about your family much, do you?"  

"I don't talk about my family at all."  

"But you do have one?"  

You'd been idling around the stairs, somewhat distracted by the two children, a boy covered with dirt and a girl with hair in two red braids, chasing each other and knocking each other to the ground--You open your mouth, but your voice catches in your throat. "No," you say. You do not sound uncertain.  

Instead of saying anything, Hawke begins to hum again: the melody, rising and waning low in his throat, in broken notes and a lethargic, grating tempo, you finally recognize as a travelling song you heard on the road to Tantervale.  _It ain't no use in calling out my name, gal._ You imagine three weeks underground, listening to this, and grit your teeth.  

"Actually, Fenris--" He straightens and, tapping his chin, says, "I'll only give your pay to the Templars on one condition."  

A wind rises and wanes, carrying the smell of rot. You bury the armored tip of one finger in your palm and look directly into his eyes. "And what is that?"  

He avoids your gaze and clears his throat. "If I die and you live, you really do have to two-step with Carver."  

He laughs, to tell you that this was a joke.  

"Thank you," he says. "I'd really be fucked if you weren't with me on this."  

You scowl, involuntarily. Your skin is beginning to itch. "Don't thank me, mage, you hired me."  

You start down the stairs, the helmet he gave you under your arm. He calls after you, "I think you mean 'don't thank me,  _smuggler_.'"  

In the two years you have been free, friendship has not been much on your mind: just as well, because since you left Seheron, few people have valued your companionship over the price on your head.   

You haven't been seeking it, but that doesn't mean you're opposed to the idea. Though it may seem that way.  

You've helped him to repay a debt you owe him, because he helped you, even though he never asked to be repaid. You've helped him because he split the profits with you. You've taught him what you know about battle tactics because he asked, you've played cards with him and his friends because you were invited, you've asked him to share a bottle of wine with you on your roof because you were drunk.  

You are not actually going into the Deep Roads for the money. You're doing it because you like him.  

It does sting that the first person to offer you friendship had to be a mage. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "travelling song" is "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" by Elf Bob Dylan, obv.


	3. Good Choices

III. FENRIS 

The day fouled swiftly: an hour into the trek through the mountains, the sky clouded over. Since then short draughts of rainfall, sharp like pinpricks, have fallen in intervals on the party and Varric's brother has in intervals swooped down upon the mercenaries, the hired muscle, and the pack mules in a thunderous frenzy: he is convinced that their incompetency--the mercenaries', the muscles', the mules', Varric's--will keep the expedition from reaching the Deep Roads entrance before the storm picks up speed. Animal wails echo through the pass, and you walk near the end of the train to avoid hearing Anders wail about his feet.  

You've been distracting yourself by watching Hawke, farther ahead, talk to some of the Red Iron mercenaries. They walk forward without turning their heads or acknowledging his presence in any way, and he speaks with increasing animation and more exaggerated gesticulation the more they ignore him. It reminds you of a ballet you once saw.  

Abruptly, one of the mercenaries draws her knife and presses it to Hawke's throat; you grab your sword, but Varric is closer, and once he's between them it's over as quickly as it started. The mercenary sheaths her dagger and Varric stays, placating, at her side while Hawke makes his getaway against the flow of traffic. He gives her a thumbs-up as he leaves, and you're no longer sure that means something different here.  

He falls into place walking at your side; you say, "The hate you inspire in people is unfortunate." He grunts and mumbles, _yeah, yeah._ You smile, but he doesn't see this.  

He's wearing armor you've never seen before, a coat and sash that actually fits him well, and you tell him this. He laughs and says it was his father's, then falls silent, head downturned and scowling.  

You walk like this in silence until a murmur rises in the crowd ahead, and a shout from Bartrand along the lines of _It's about void damned time, you lazy sodding bastards_. You look up and swear.  

You've been walking on a path cut into the mountainside, wide enough for two caravans but steep, so the cavern wasn't visible until the ground leveled out just a moment ago.  

The opening climbs the height of ten men up the mountain face, guarded on either side by weather-worn statues: the head of the axe one is holding is broken and laying at its feet, the hands faded to stumps and the faces to obscurity, but clearly dwarven. The nearer you get, the heavier the darkness inside grows, and you see people already taking torches from the supply carts and lighting them--One of the drivers struggles with a tinderbox, not noticing Anders or the torches already lit around him that are being passed down the train.  

The distance closes and in a gust of air from the tunnel, you smell the blight for the first time. A sound like a blade against glass rings off the walls--By the light of the torches ahead, you can see that inside the way is paved by cut stone, and the tunnel is held up by repeating arches. Someone calls back that there's a stairway ahead.  

"Though stung by a hundred arrows, though suffering from ailments both great and small, his heart was strong and he moved on."  

Your skin pricks. "What?"  

"You're talking to yourself." Hawke grins, crossing his arms behind his back and reciting, " _Though stung by a hundred arrows, though suffering ailments both great and small, his heart was strong and he moved_ _on._ I didn't know you were 'one of the faithful.'"  

You are not.  

You roll your shoulders to shift the weight of your sword on your back. "It's a beautiful song."  

"It's a song of guilt," he says, laughing.  

"Whose guilt?" you snap. "Magisters'? Mages'? Yours?"  

He cocks his head, considering. "Maybe mine."  

You turn your face away, laughing despite yourself.  

"Were you thinking about dying?"  

You take a breath, collecting yourself. You're steps from the mouth of the cavern, the first archway hanging over your heads and near enough the old stone dwarves to see the griffon carved into the side of one at about eye level, just below his knees. "It's a good thing to reflect on, considering the circumstances."  

He nods, and cranes his neck to look up at the face of the statue. "I wouldn't worry too much. I've seen where we go, and I don't know what exactly happens, but it's not a bad place. Think it will be for me, though."  

You have time to furrow your brow at him, but before you can ask him what in the Void he means by that he starts whistling that song again, and you decide you'll let him keep it to himself.  

Torch in hand, Anders strides through the crowd toward you and gives a thumbs up to Hawke. "Home again, home again," he says cheerfully, and slings an arm around Hawke for support.  

 

* * *

 

Bartrand does not throw Hawke into the lava pit. He throws all four of you into a pit of ancient magical horrors.   

It's quite unsettling, watching Hawke dream. You'd think he was fully awake, just closing his eyes. No bleariness in his smiles or grimaces, his face is as vivid as it is waking. As is his sleep talking: it's a testament to Anders's and Varric's exhaustion that they've only curled tighter into their bedrolls and covered their ears.  

It's been at least a few days since you slew that rock demon, that big thing with all the rocks and magic, that demon thing. Anders is very upset about the injustice of the wraith and the hunger of whatever was down there or whatever, and if he brings it up again in the morning ("morning") you will stab him with your sword. His demon won't let him die, you're ninety-percent sure, but stabbing him will feel amazing. Though, it may create complications for the remainder of the journey--But damn the consequences, you'll stab him or you'll stab your damn self. 

You're on the first watch shift, but the truth is you haven't been able to sleep since Hawke found that idol anyway. You'll probably just let them sleep until they have their fill, there would be no point in depriving someone else.  

You did not know that there was a such a thing as red lyrium. Even Anders, the magical "scholar" of the group, can't explain it. But you can feel _in your skin_ that it is wrong, and once you found the idol the Thaig seemed to be made of it, red everywhere, a heat like fever, like infection. The mages have been having trouble with their spells, their magic isn't working as it should. Anders described it as "being in a room made of mirrors and trying to run." Even the dwarf is perturbed, but whether that is the lyrium or the betrayal is anyone's guess.  

Varric is nigh inconsolable. He'll start crying while you walk and you, Hawke and Anders glare at one another but none of you know what to do, so you walk and Varric weeps.  

Anyway, the Warden has no idea when you'll reach the surface. He says if you keep going for the "up paths" you'll get there "eventually."  

(One side of Hawke's mouth quirks up, his grip on the bedroll relaxes, frost at his knuckles melts away. _You almost had me that time, but you should know by now that_ _he would stab me with much more_ _joi_ _de vivre_ _. Let’s try again, shall we?_ This, from silence.)  

Hawke hasn't sprouted tentacles and you saw him reject the big red rock demon with your own eyes, so you shouldn't be so convinced that you're watching him get possessed right now, but this place has glutted you with paranoia. You can hear the idol in Varric's pack, and the sound echoing down your markings makes you want to crack your skull against a rock. Your skull already feels like it's been cracked on a rock.  

He's grown quiet and you've managed to distract yourself with polishing your sword, which Anders says must be cleaned with a special potion to remove the tainted blood, because otherwise it'll just stick, but which sticks potion be damned--When Hawke surges up, eyes open, hands flaming.  

" _Not today, bastard!"_   

For a moment he just heaves in air, grinning wildly at nothing, until he notices you standing with your sword at ready. His hands extinguish.  

"Still your watch?"  

"It is."  

"That's about how long, then? Since I nodded off?"  

You gesture at the stalactites. "Who is to say?"  

"Too true." He folds his blanket off his legs and stretches, one arm at a time. "I'm not possessed, by the way."  

You keep your sword up. "Hmm."  

"A little paranoid, are we? _Hmm, hmm, hmm._ Beginning to wilt, so far from the Maker's light? The thousand arrows notwithstanding?"  

A vision of Hawke's chest split in two flashes in your mind.  

You stand still and say nothing. He hangs his head and sighs.   

"If I ever do get possessed, it'll be a hell of a job figuring out what's different."  

"That it will."  

At your feet, your helmet rolls over on its side; the screech of a distant deepstalker echoes off the stalactites above, and a drop of moisture falls from one to the ground between you and him. Anders pulls his blanket over his head and you sheath your sword. Your throat is so dry you taste blood; you're feverish. You are, in fact, incredibly paranoid.  

When he offers to take over the watch, you tell him you'd rather stay awake.  

 

* * *

 

IV. CARVER  

This is the only letter your brother's sent to you since you joined the Order:  

 _Carver-_ _-_   

 _All well here. Dog took your bunk, mother done sobbing,_ _ownership of_ _Amell estate being transferred to us, Merrill sends regards. How's life in the wolf's den, you_ _filf_ _thy_ (sic) _bastard traitor?_   

 _Ha-ha, joking no hard feelings. Childhood memories of being chased out of town, hiding in forests/gutters while armor clanked ominously in distance_ _still somewhat fresh is all_ _. Remember that village on the Hafter where I got smited! How we pulled out of that one I'll never know. But I'm sure you'll be a better Templar! Anyway, the being chased and hiding was more mine and Beth's doing, what with our "foul curse." Never really your thing, I recall._   

 _Anyway I hope your training's going well. Go easy on that lyrium, brother! That stuff's hard on your kind! Wouldn't want to end up like ol Sampson would we._   

 _I'm sure your_ (sic) _very happy. Finally out of your big brother's shadow, now that you've gone the one place I can't. Not alive, anyway! I'm sure this is what father meant when he named you after that Templar who broke vows to free him from the Circle. All those times he told us--"When you see a Templar, don't take chances, just get away!"--I'm sure those were jokes, now that I look back on it. Always was a jokester, our Malcolm. That's how you know I'm his natural son. We knew you were his natural son because you came out with Bethany._   

 _Well I'd better stop rambling--You know how I love to talk. & thanks for not turning me in yet--have to admit, I went into hiding for a few weeks after you left! No, really! Camping, like the old days!_  

 _Sure Beth would be proud!_   

 _-_ _-Garrett_   

_ps. Fuck you_

Mother wrote all the letters after that, which is just as well, because along with the baffling syntax and wildly careening trains of thought, Garrett has the handwriting of a dying illiterate stranded on a cluster of rocks in the ocean desperately scratching his final testimonies into a chunk of driftwood as a raging tempest slowly lashes him into oblivion. Because, while he was always devoted to Father's magic lessons, he never really had the patience to let Mother teach him reading and writing.   

You are enjoying your training, as a matter of fact. The other recruits can't understand how you know so much about magic. You tell them you've been preparing for this your entire life.  

 

* * *

 

V. FENRIS  

On the road back to Kirkwall, you cross paths with a farmer driving her goods to market, and Anders sprints ahead to meet her, arms waving, and literally beg her to let the four of you ride in her cart with the cabbages. _This_ is where you finally fall asleep: the hard bed of the cart, with the cabbages, to the sound of the wheels rattling and Varric telling a story about a highwayman.  

When you wake up, the sun is just touching the horizon, you see through the columns overlooking the bay, and the sky over roofs of Hightown market is the color of the deepstalker flesh you've eaten these past days: pale, slightly bloodied and streaked with clouds like white fat. The noise of commerce is dimmer in the evening light. You sit up, cabbages rolling around you, and see that Varric and Hawke are already standing, talking with the farmer. Anders leans against the side of the cart, smirking at you.  

"Call me weak all you want, Fenris," he says, and taps the wood with a dirty fingernail. "But just remember who got you that nap."  

The four of you agree to meet up at the tavern later and you go your separate ways: Hawke, to tell his family he's alive; Varric, to hunt down his brother; Anders, to follow Varric and make sure he doesn't kill his brother; and you, to pace through the fifteen rooms of your house twice over and pass out with your boots on, and you dream of Hawke again. All you remember is standing by a market stall in the Deep Roads, lyrium dripping off the stalactites while you dug through a crate of shoes. Hawke kept asking why you needed a _red_ pair of boots; he said, "If only red-dyed boots were as easy to find as red-headed elves."  

You wake up with your teeth clenched, your neck locked up from sleeping on your stomach. The fire in the hearth is out, because you were too tired to start it when you got back, and you're freezing. You stay like this, completely still, debating for much too long whether or not you'll actually show up to the Hanged Man. There is food and fire there, but somehow this does little to sway you.  

The night is black, moonless, and coming down the stairs to Lowtown you see that the streets are as still as they ever are. The ragged canopies hanging between buildings sway and the flags breath softly on the walls they hang from. From a fourth story window someone's elbows hang, and smoke billows from their mouth.  

You meet Aveline just outside the tavern. She hits the door with her shoulder, the light from inside hitting her back in the brief moment before the door swings shut, and seeing you she stops, arms crossed and nostrils flared.  

"He's mad in there," she says, hushed. "They're not having a victory celebration in there, Hawke's holding his own wake. Well, if he wants suicide, he can have it. I'm done with this _shit._ "  

The first thing you see, inside, is the Templar Roderick slumped back at the small table by the door; the light of the candle melting into the wood in front of him glints off his armor and he snores thickly. You look up from this, and you see Hawke in the back of the room and Hawke's hand, engulfed in flame. He's cackling, white teeth flashing, and Merrill is clapping her hands, which are in thick gloves of gathered stone, over his flaming one and drawing it under the table.   

Isabela sits to one side of the table, the back of her chair propped against the wall and the heel of one boot propped up on the tabletop. She's laughing vaguely from one side of her mouth and staring off at the bar.  

Hawke spots you and waves with his other hand, which promptly catches fire.  

You cross the mostly empty room (Corff muttering darkly behind the bar, Norah rolling her eyes) to the table. Isabela is saying, "It's funny, Hawke, but when you said you were finally going to let me get you really sloshed, I imagined a less depressing night ahead."  

Merrill reaches over to snatch Hawke's other hand out of the air and says, "Stop encouraging him, Isabela, everyone knows shemlen can't handle drink."  

Isabela snickers vaguely, and Hawke stands, jolting his chair back, and gestures grandly to the chair opposite his. His hand leaves a trail of smoke. "Fenris!" he says brightly. "Join us, please! Have you heard about Carver?"  

Isabela groans. Merrill clicks her tongue worriedly.  

You take the seat and say, "I have not."  

He nods and pours himself a half-glass of honey-colored liquor from the bottle on the table. "This is amazing," he says, offering you the bottle. "I bought it because I'm richer than the Divine now. It tastes like burning."  

"I'll decline," you say.  

"Carver joined the Templars." He takes a drink; Merrill clicks her tongue. Hawke sets the glass down, sloshing, and sets what's left in it on fire with the tip of his finger. He snuffs the flame with the flat of his hand, drinks it, and flashes a grin. "Isn't that dandy?"  

It amazes you that these theatrics never seem to exhaust him. They certainly exhaust you.  

"It was a good choice," you say. "He'll do well there."  

"Do you want to fight me, Fenris?" He leans in on his elbows. His eyes are the same color as the brandy and they are staring burningly at your chin. "No weapons, no magic? I'm game."  

"No," you say. He narrows his eyes.  

He forgets that you are a weapon, for one.  

The legs of Isabela's chair clack against the floor; she reaches across the table to pick up Hawke's glass with her thumb and forefinger. "You did this wrong, sweet thing." She sighs and pours herself a shot. "You're supposed to drink it while it's still on fire. That way your beard goes up in flames and I get to laugh at you."  

"Where's Varric?" you ask her.  

"Hiring a hitman, I presume," Hawke says. Isabela sets a finger on her chin and nods.  

"Anders left maybe an hour ago," she says. "He said this reminded him of the parties at Vigil's Keep, but less fun and somehow more likely to get him killed." She throws her head back and drinks, slams the glass down and gathers her hair back with both hands, letting it fall at her back. "Why am I still here, you ask? I'm asking myself the same question, actually."  

"Oh! Maybe you're in love with Hawke," Merrill suggests.  

"That's it," Isabela says, scratching her teeth.  

"Well, even if you are." Merrill is holding her arms close to her chest, lacing her fingers together and twisting them anxiously. "Someone has to get him home. There's the Templar to worry about, of course, but I'm more worried he's going to catch the table on fire again, and that will be our third strike and we'll have to find a different tavern."  

"Well, obviously," Isabela says.   

"Yes, well, it's very funny about Carver," Hawke says. He's sitting back in his chair, holding the bottle by the neck and idly swirling the liquor inside. He's still wearing his Father's coat, but the gauntlets and other armored pieces have been removed and the buckles are unfastened, and while his face and hands seem to have been washed in some capacity the grime of the Deep Roads is still very visible at the cuffs of his sleeves, his neck, his hair which sticks up in strange places where blood and filth have dried; and he is like you in that his words don't slur together but he _is_ louder and clumsier: his chin tilts up and he looks almost like those girls who will sometimes sit on the piano at the dockside bar that no one knows you go to, when they look up at the ceiling with a glaze over their eyes that may be tears, may be booze, just before starting a song: _One man has hands that are tender, one man has hands that are strong..._   

In the back of your mind you hear the first notes of a tinny piano playing. Hawke continues:  

"Carver, Carver... You know, I always knew he'd betray me. He's had it out for me ever since he discovered I'd inherit the farm and he wouldn't, and though the _real_ inheritors of that land were the _darkspawn,_ he's still got that usurper's mindset. Never goes away, yes? Succession politics, so ugly, what an ugly thing to think about--A second son's entire soul corrupted over ten acres of land that aren't even viable or owned by us at all anymore. Tragic. Oh, Father never had enough time for him so I suppose he was always hanging at my shirt sleeves, you know, and I was just terrible to him. Awful, really. Once I locked him in a wardrobe and made him think we'd moved house and left him behind. Terrible! Yes, I hate to say it, but the closest I ever was to my brother was when we played mumblety-peg as children. I would throw a knife at his feet, he'd throw a knife at mine. I'd stab him, he'd stab me, and Father would have to remind us that if we hit the wrong vein we'd die, healing magicks be damned... The best of times." He flips his hair off his face and takes a contemplative sip from the bottle. "Otherwise, though? I can't say I cared for him at all."  

Isabela begins a slow clap. Merrill sniffs and scrubs at her eyes.  

"Anyway," he says. He brushes his hair back and a cut on his knuckles has opened up, a smear of blood down the back of his hand, but he doesn't seem to notice. "I can't go back to Gamlen's house. That's the first place the Templars will look for me, and they'll certainly be on my ass by sunrise."  

"Where will you go, Hawke?" You don't ask this gently, but neither do you ask it to be harsh. You feel that you recognize what you see in front of you, but the implications of that feeling, surprising like the echo you hear seconds after dropping a rock into a canyon, somewhat like a knife in the leg is surprising, are enough to make you play your cards close to your chest.  

"The forest," he says, and clears his throat with an ugly nasal sound. "I'm going to wander the forests outside the city, and I think I'll become a hedge mage. Varric told me a story about a dragon cult in the Frostbacks once, maybe I'll see if I can't start one here."  

"You think that's wise?"  

" _Yes._ "  

"And you really believe that Carver will turn you in?"  

"You don't?"  

"I don't."  

"You trust him more than I do. But you would, because he believes everything you believe, doesn't he? Yes, it would make your day to see me carted off to the Gallows, wouldn't it, Fenris? Right where I belong, yes?"  

"No," you say, calmly.  

"It won't happen. I'll kill myself first, don't doubt it."  

"Go home, Hawke."  

He laughs and gets up to leave, tripping on the chair legs.  

"One of us should take him," Merrill says.  

"Write me off," Isabela says. "He can't stay in my room. He'll keep me up all night, and not in the fun way."  

"I'll take him," you say, and you go to catch him before he's gone.  

Usually you're mindful of how much you drink when you aren't at the mansion. Once or twice, you were not. One evening stands out in your memory: you were here, you were unable to walk straight, you weren't speaking because you were hardly able to form words, and you decided it was time for you to leave Kirkwall. Right then, at that moment, immediately.  

These are vague recollections, of course. You hardly remember anything specific about that night.   

You do remember your feet scraping against the cobblestones in Hightown, holding yourself up with somebody's arm, Hawke's voice in good humor and you, snapping at it. You woke up on the floor in the front room of the mansion--More comforting than waking up in bed would have been, because you knew that he'd seen you to the door and left.   

You can appreciate a man who stays outside and leaves.  

Very, very rarely, running is the worst choice you can make.   

You find Hawke outside with his head against the wall. You ask him if he trusts you; he says, "I don't trust anyone," but he follows you home anyway.  

Holding him steady on the stairway, you say, "I thought you didn't drink."  

"I really try not to," he says, and you believe him.  

 

* * *

 

A few months into knowing him, you invited Hawke onto your roof to share a bottle of wine with you.  You'd already drunk a bottle yourself and had been ruminating on the idea of his ass for about an hour, before you did this.  

You say, you've always held that a man who watches you drink while he stays sober is a man to watch out for.  

He says that his intentions are completely toward, completely innocent. Wine just makes it harder to sleep--He thought you'd appreciate a mage who keeps his wits about him in the Fade?  

The situation was deadly, wholly unwise. You smile to yourself sometimes at night, thinking of it.  

He told you about his family, and you told him as little as possible. You were laying on your backs on the cold clay tile, talking about the stars. You told him the names of constellations in Tevene and Qunlat, and he told you a Chasind story of how the night sky fell in love with the moon: she would always turn away from him, but she would always turn around again.  

 _How do you say my name in_ _Tevene_ _?_ _he asks._ _Hawke,_ _you answer._ _Funny,_ _he says._ _That’s how you say it in Rivaini and Elvish, too._   

He was good company, and you kept whatever company you liked. He had a beautiful smile and you remember thinking, this is what it is to be free. This is what it is to live, and you are living.  

You were naming the stars and he said, wait.   

We used to play this game as children, he said, and he raised his hands to the stars, twisted them, and brought forth from the aether a red wisp.   

Suddenly, the air was cold.  

We used to do this as children, he said, nearly whispering, with an edge of excitement like what you feel when you slip an apple into your pocket and walk away unnoticed and free; and he waved the wisp toward you, the colors trailing as peacefully as lightning through clouds miles and miles away.  

The feeling you had was of not knowing exactly where you were in time, a sort of dizziness that doesn't make sense when explained aloud. In a few years you will try to find the words in writing: you'll tear the parchment scratching out what you'd just written and finally snap the quill in two.  

You asked him to go. You were trying to remember where you'd seen that before, and the fact that you could not made you want to pace, tear your hair, hit something until your hands bled, but you couldn't do that until you were alone. Danarius said that he could take your memory away again, and you're sure it was only once, only the first time but you're _never sure._ You've never seen Danarius play children's games and you cannot guess when you saw this, but you know you saw this, but you're never sure.  

Hawke left and you watched him leave through the front door and walk into the street, his hands in his pockets. Your hand was at your mouth; you were tearing your nails with your teeth.  

You stayed on the roof, on the tile, not looking at the sky but at your feet between your knees, and you asked yourself, or the air, if it was living things or just you that was drawn toward destruction. You heard no answer, and still have not.  

None of this--Men, mages, knowing your own mind, breathing or living or staying still long enough to know a place, or moving on--None of this will come easily until Danarius is dead. You never feel that you are alone; everywhere you go there is the specter of the Magister, the voice of the Master trailing behind everything you say and think, and you need no witch to tell you that you have not yet escaped. So killing him is what you've decided to focus on. The rest will come... eventually. The rest will have to wait. 

 

* * *

 

While you rattle the locks on the door to the mansion, because you bought them all from the same man and all the keys all look the same so it takes you ten minutes each time, Hawke vomits into an empty flower pot.   

"You know," he says when he's done. "Right now, I would definitely let you fuck me if you wanted."  

"I must decline."  

"Good choice!"  

Inside, you point him towards the mattress you set out in the front room after the night you slept on the floor here and you say, "Go to sleep, Hawke."  

"Can't," he says. "Too intoxicated, going to wake up in the Fade and make poor decisions."  

You look at him and squint, because you truly don't know if he's making that up or not.  

"Do you have any little pieces of paper, or maybe sticks, perhaps?"   

You ask why. He rubs his fingers and thumb together and explains that he's going to set them alite and watch them burn very slowly until he's sober again.  

You sneer and go upstairs while he explains, standing in the lower level of the main room, echoing, that if he can't burn anything he's just going to conjure a bunch of ice and build a wall in your foyer, and that's just going to make a mess--  

You grab your book from where it lay in one of the spare rooms and throw it off the balcony. "Catch," you say, but he ducks, and the book hits the floor and slides to the far wall. He picks it up and blinks at the cover.  

"You gave me the Chant?"  

Once you entered the Chantry in Hightown, just to see what it was like. A tall, dark room, nearly as dark as you keep your own and lit by beams of colored light from the windows and a thousand clean-burning candles, the smell of frankincense from the smoking diffusers held by the towering statues. The place was quiet and empty when you came in, and you were listening to the Sister singing high on the tribune when another Sister approached you. She gave the book to you, with great condescension, presumably because you are an elf and therefore an indigent heathen. You told her you only came here because you were bored, pressed fifty silvers into her hand, which is more than you spend on meals in a month, and left. After that, if you went to the Chantry no one offered you charity, or bothered you at all.  

You locked it in the spare room because no matter how long you stared at it you couldn't connect the writing with the words you knew, and it was driving you mad.  

"I hear it's a good book," you tell Hawke. "If you can't sleep, read."  

You lock the bedroom door behind you, and only then do you realize that you still have no food and no fire, and you won't be able to check the fifteen rooms and thirty-four windows tonight.  

 

* * *

 

In the morning the fire in your room is still out but all the torches in the main hall are lit with magelight, and the bodies you've left to rot where they lay are gone. Hawke is in the chair that usually sits by the door, but which is now in the doorway between the main hall and the front room. He jerks to his feet when he hears you at the stairs, clapping shut the book in his hands.  

"Your bodies are in there." He waves toward the east wing. "I would've burned them, but I figured the smoke might be worse than the rotting, even with the, ah, ventilation." He glances up at the ceiling. Through the hole, you can see the sky lightening to blue.  

"Ah." Your head is only now feeling clear of the red lyrium's song, after sleeping all afternoon and all night. You're distracted by the door to the east wing, slightly ajar, and trying to remember what you've done to those rooms. You think it was just the dining hall you tore apart, in that wing.  

"I have to leave. Town, I mean." His hand is on the back of his neck and he's bouncing on his heels. "Just for a few days."  

Now that he's sober, he can make whatever decisions he wants. You won't argue.   

"I do trust you," he says, loud and strangely defensive. "By the way. Thank you for letting me stay here."  

And he goes just as abruptly, and you don't think he knows he still has your book but you let him take it anyway, because he, at least, might find some use for it.  

When the door shuts you are left in the strange green light, and you begin to ask yourself the obvious: _Do I trust him?_ But you decide to wonder, instead, at the thought of yourself as someone worthy of trust. 

It didn't work out well for the last people to trust you. 

 

* * *

 

VI. FENRIS 

You asked Varric, a few months into your acquaintance, what he found so fascinating about Hawke. This was asked aggressively, but the question was defensive. You were not yet Hawke's friend, but your mind was turning to him in quiet moments enough to bother you; you had invited him onto your roof the night before. You think Varric was telling you a story about something Hawke did with the Viscount's son, but you may have been the one to bring him up. You aren’t sure, you were drinking when you asked it. You were cross-legged in one of Varric's dwarven chairs.  

Varric set his mug down and stroked his beardless chin. He said something along the lines of,  

When I got him to sign onto the expedition, I had him meet me here for drinks at the bar. You won't believe this, but back then, Hawke and Carver went everywhere together. No one I'd talked to had ever seen one of them alone. Really, I shit you not! That's why Hawke didn't have any friends before he met me.  

I had seen him by himself, though, a few weeks before. This was just after he cut ties with that smuggler, Athenril--You seen her, by the way? Lips pursed as tight as her purse strings, not a woman to joke with over the price of a grapefruit. Anyway--Hawke walked into the Hanged Man, tensed up and bouncing on his heals like a kid walking into his first back alley boxing match, right? It's a stance any pro will recognize immediately as completely wrong, so I, pro barfly that I am, had an eye on him from the first second. And so did most of the room! See, if Hawke'd been thinking, he would've gone to some amateur's bar like The Smoothe Retsina down at the docks. He would've blown The Smoothe Retsina crowd's minds.  

So everyone is watching Hawke, Hawke looks like he's about to start some crazy shit. He goes to the bar, he orders this drink I'm ninety-percent sure he didn't touch, he circles the room until someone asks him what he's looking for. He takes this as an invitation and sits down with them, a table full of Red Iron brutes, you know, real itchy sons of bitches, and he starts in on a story like, 'I come home one Friday, had to tell the landlady I done lost my job...' But nobody's interested. So he gets a little louder and a little crazier and he tells them this story about a blood mage in Lowtown.  

Now, I can't tell it like he did, but the Hanged Man was packed that night--Sunday, you know? And _everyone_ was listening to this twitchy Ferelden with a booming voice, a voice that _really_ _really_ _carries_ , go on about this fucking _vic_ _ious_ maleficar prowling the old slums, who _he_ saw boil a whole company of Carta enforcers with their own blood, just the other week at the docks. No, no, I'm really not doing it justice--He had this whole schtick about a bar, he's sitting in a bar, and in walks the biggest _mage_ he's ever seen! It's like the guy's always walking in shadow, the lights dimmed just for him! Ah, I forget the bit, there was this whole bit about tearing into his wrists with his teeth and manifesting gold out of thin air.  

He made up some bullshit excuse and beat it the second he ran out of things to say, I couldn't catch him. Short legs, but that's life. It was obvious he was talking about himself, trying to get someone to bite and hire him, and that's how I knew he was desperate enough to go into the Deep Roads with Bartrand and me.  

"Hawke's a blood mage?" 

No, no, that was just part of the light show. He can't conjure piles of sovereigns, either.  

Varric winked and said, "If only." You were all very naive in those days.  

Anyway, Varric said. After I introduced myself to him proper and we became business partners, I was excited to see what he'd do when I brought him to the bar again. My lips to the Maker's tits, I swear he kept looking to his left, like he kept forgetting his brother wasn't there. The whole thing seemed like a novelty to him, you know? And he was, you know, Hawke. He was worse in the beginning, I don't think he told me anything that wasn't an overblown lie the entire night. Lies so absurd you know he's just fucking with you, that is--Not my kind of lying, which is art. He told me a dragon flew him over the Waking Sea--Here, Varric was laughing too hard to speak.  

Just picture it! Picture it, Hawke riding a dragon!  

So he was hilarious, Varric continued. But here's what caught my interest: who's he performing for? When does it stop? And when it does, what does that leave? What's the truth--What _really_ drives this ogre-slaying, apostate son-of-a-bitch? Also, I thought he really might be a blood mage back then, which, I'd never personally known a blood mage so I thought that was worth seeing.  

So, that's what 'fascinates' me, I guess.  

"Have you decided what _really_ drives him, then?"  

Varric sat back, steepled his hands and considered his wording. "Honestly, Broody, I think he just doesn't know he can walk away."  

Actually, Varric was wrong. Whatever Hawke does, he does because he thinks that if he doesn't, he'll disappear.  

Perhaps that's what living in a world of pure will does to you. You wouldn't know. You can only guess because you've lived with him for too long.  

 


	4. Birds That Prey on Other Birds

VII. CARVER  

You have a precious short period of anonymity. For a few months you're "Hawke," and you aren't popular because that's not your nature, but you're respected. By some, you're even liked. For the first time you have a circle of friends all your own, and the work is hard, but you're bloody good at it.  

You've never felt so right.  

It only lasts as long as Garrett's reputation does, which is about as long as you'd expect. It starts when one of your friends, a noblewoman's third daughter, asks you if the Hawke in the old Amell place is of any relation. Then he's doing favors for the Viscount, then you get asked if you're a Qunari sympathizer because your brother deals with the Qunari, then, then maybe a year, maybe a little less after you enlist you hear the first whisperings of the  _real_ gossip.  

Garrett's notoriety rises with his nobility, and soon his magic is the worst kept secret in Kirkwall. The Viscount, backed up by a chorus of nobles Garrett's ingratiated himself to, is the only thing keeping him free--That, and the money. Oh, you've heard about the enormous "donations" your family so generously makes to the Order, you've heard.  _Guess no one told that brother o' yours there's no tuition to keep you here, eh, 'Hawke?'_   

Knight-Captain Cullen is dying to bring him in, but the precarious situation with the Arishok more than anything stays his hand. Whenever  "Hawke" comes up in conversation, the whole left side of his face twitches--Which, usually you're the Hawke being brought up, but it's the same difference.  

Your "friends" stop talking to you, most of them as soon as the vaguest rumor of Garrett's magic hits their ears; you're soon lucky to find someone who will sit with you in the mess hall. Harboring apostates is not a sin the Order is want to forgive, after all.  

The Knight-Captain and Knight-Commander are kinder to you than anyone.  

"You were raised by apostates," Meredith says, standing to one side of her desk, her back to you, while her tranquil assistant pours red floral tea into two white cups and a plume of steam rises in the cold air. "From infancy, you were indoctrinated in their views, their dogma. Still, you saw what was truly right, and you took action. That is commendable."  

It's during one of these brief talks in her office--tense, but always edifying, always validating somehow--that you learn that many of the older Templars remember Malcolm Hawke, the junior enchanter who destroyed his phylactery and stole off with the Amell heir. You'd wondered why your instructors were so hard on you in training, but all those latrines you scrubbed make sense now.  

"It's difficult," Knight-Captain Cullen says. The wind is blowing into his eyes, as he stands looking over the courtyard from the roof of the Templar Hall, and the set of his mouth makes it look as if he has a terrible itch somewhere unmentionable. His arms, locked together at his back, only strengthen this impression. You admire him deeply, but you can't get this thought out of your head, whenever you see him.   

"Dealing with mages," he continues. "It’s difficult. They can be so kind, so sensitive."  

You think of Garrett and snort. Cullen gives you a look, and you fake a cough.  

"...They seem like gentle people," he says after a pause. "And it can be easy to forget why what we do to them is necessary. Sometimes, when they tell you you're stealing their life away--When one takes their own life--You feel absolutely evil." He shakes his head, the clang of steel on steel echoing off the walls below.  

You're fairly sure you're in a trap.  

You want to keep your mouth shut, but he looks at you for a response, and damn you if you've ever pulled your punches for anyone.  

"I'm right with you that the Circle is what's best for them," you say. You don't say,  _When they kill themselves, maybe it does mean we're doing something evil,_ because you're still a recruit and you've never been in the Gallows, and some of these realities haven't sunk in for you yet. "But some of them  _are_  gentle."  

Cullen smiles. "Especially the pretty girls, yes?"  

You think of green eyes and a lilting Dalish accent and go red as a spring apple.  

Cullen chuckles, his mouth still twisted by the itch. "But you were probably speaking of...?"  

"I don't speak of him."  

"Everyone else does," he says, but leaves it at that. "They seem rational, gentle, but you know as well as I do that they look more like us than they truly are. We call maleficars desperate, but the truth is that all of them--pretty girls included--are so hungry for power, any kind of power, they'll take any opportunity for more if they think they'll get away with it. It's... different for them. It's instinctual."   

A draft of smoke blows in on the wind and leaves a taste in your throat. You're thinking of your sister, but you're also thinking of your brother. Your face is probably starting to look a lot like the Knight-Captain's, itchy.  

"I can sympathize, of course, but mages aren't like us." He wraps his hands, gauntleted, around the iron rail and watches the sparrows glide over the courtyard. "What they need is  _this_ \--order, supervision, confinement. Even if it is not what they want.  _Especially_ if it's not what they want, speaking from experience. When you go easy on them, you're just playing into their plan--And there is always a plan, or at least a seedling of one in the back of a mage's mind. Waiting.   

"The rest of us deserve to be safe. If mages refuse to put the greater good above their own good--and they always will--then ruling them with an iron will is the only way to do it."  

There's a distant part of you composing a speech: you didn't become a Templar because you hate mages, you became a Templar to help them, and where does he get off, acting like mages are some kind of beast? But there's a more present part of you still angry about watching your needs and your mother's needs always being put behind Father's and Garrett's and Beth's, and there's a part still horrified in ways you can't really understand that remembers Garrett soaked in his own blood, and there's a part of you still terrified of your brother. There's you, losing sleep at night, remembering Ser Thrask's daughter, Tarohne, Viveka, Decimus, and your brother loose in the world.  

You really don't have the energy to disagree with the Knight-Captain.  

"My brother," you hear yourself saying, with the edge of a laugh. "Thinks everyone can be saved.  _Everyone._ "  

Ser Cullen looks thoughtful, watching a falcon swoop in on the flock of sparrows. "Perhaps," he says, with a wry smile. "If we could get the mages under control, so few would need saving."  

 

* * *

 

You get a letter on paper that smells like lavender and dried elfroot. Your hands go clammy opening it.  

_Dear Carver,_   

_Well, it's been some time, hasn't it? I do hope you're doing well!_   

_Before I say anything, I want to get this out of the way: as a mage and as a Dalish elf, I don't agree with the Templars. But, then again, I don't agree with most shemlen institutions, do I? (Oh, I hate how toneless letters are. That was meant to be funny.) But I think I understand your reasons, and you know what? If anyone had to be a Templar, I'm glad it's you! You, at least, have a good heart!_   

_I suppose you're wondering why the funny elf lady's writing you, eh?_   

_Hawke won't say it, but I know he misses you dearly. "Actions speak louder than words" you know. I never had any siblings myself, but I know how close they can be to one another's hearts, though they may get on like Sylaise and Andruil at suppertime on a summer day!_   

_Oh, dear, that probably doesn't make sense to you at all._   

_I know Templars lead very busy lives, what with all the mages and all, but if you can sneak out this Sunday (the new moon!) and meet us at the Venedahl, I promise Hawke will be there. A neutral ground! You're both shems, so neither of you will be welcome there!_   

_(Okay, THAT was probably only funny to me.)_   

_I know you're probably still very sore with your brother, but I do hope you'll think on this. With everything that's happened with Varric and_ _Bartrand_ _, and all the trouble with the Qunari and the impending war, it just has me thinking it's time to close all these needless rifts, yes? It's so awful when families break apart over petty things like pride. You're a family, aren't you? A clan! Politics and magic & such shouldn't matter. _  

_Oh my, you probably don't even know what happened to_ _Bartrand_ _, do you?_   

_Anyway--I hope to hear from you, Carver! Hopefully on Sunday!_   

_May the Dread Wolf never hear your steps,_   

~~_Merr_   ~~

_I probably shouldn't sign my name on this, should I? What with the incriminating mage information. Well, you know who I am!_   

The seal wasn't broken, so you know you're off mail inspection—You had it, for a while, but the Knight-Captain had your mail privileges restored as a show of good faith. If the letter had been intercepted, though, Merrill would be dead. And you'd probably be in the stocks waiting for a dishonorable discharge, but that's still better than death.  

You swear, Bethany is the only apostate you've ever known with a sense of caution.  

You swear you're not going to go, but Sunday comes and you're walking down the steps to the Alienage, your plate armor clunking in the evening quiet and the dusty elves sending you the evil eye under a red moon, low on the horizon.  

The Venedahl is still the biggest tree you've seen since you left Ferelden. It reminds you of those round peasant mothers in aprons, the kind which your own mother always lamented one day becoming but which remind you of warm pastries on cold days, sitting by your friends’ hearths in Lothering.  

At first you see no one, so you circle the tree. On the other side there's no sign of Garrett, but you miss a step and turn red because she's there.  

Merrill is wringing her hands, so small beneath the Venedahl but with a presence--something in her eyes, or in the way she balances on her feet that makes her look weightless--a presence that rivals it. She's looking in some other direction and mumbling to herself, "Oh dear, oh dear."  

You clear your throat and clank; she starts.  

Oh, Maker, her eyes.  

Her face lights up with a smile, a little pained. “Carver! It’s been a while, hasn't it? You're all shiny!” She waves toward you. “Now… ah.” She says something in Elvish and tugs at her tunic, clacking her teeth.  

You say, “He isn't here.”  

“Ah… Yes. Carver, I'm so sorry.”  

“It figures.” You shrug, and you rest against the Venedahl with the sound of a thousand tin plates hitting a washbasin. “It was nice of you to try, Merrill, but my brother’s never made time for me. Let alone said ‘sorry.’”  

She hums discontentedly and wrings. You expect her to say something like,  _Oh Carver, he really does care, he’s just bad with feelings,_ or,  _Carver, you know he’s got so much on his plate,_ but she doesn't. She just sighs and says, “Look at me, trying to play the Keeper and mediate yours and Hawke’s conflicts. And you aren't even elves! Oh, this is sad.”  

You're not sure if smiling will insult her, so you force it off your face before she can see.  

“Does it hurt? To fall out of his favor, I mean.”  

“It’s not like I ever had his favor. Garrett’s never had much love for me.”  

When you were eight, Garrett had a job running errands for the dock workers in Amaranthine. Every day when he came home he'd have a plum, or a trinket like a slim copper ring or a little bell on a string, and when he gave it to you you'd always ask if he stole it. He'd swear up and down that he didn't, on Andraste's name, but then he'd always give you a wink and it would send you into fits of laughter.  

You shrug. “It hurts a little. But what I’m doing is bigger than him.”  

Merrill stands a little straighter and nods vigorously. “Yes, that's it exactly. If you know you're doing the right thing, you don't need anyone’s approval. The thing is greater than the hurt, and it’s greater than the people who don't believe.”  

You say, “Uh, sure, Merrill,” because you really don't think she meant to say that the Templar Order is the right thing, but she doesn't seem to notice your confusion.  

She sighs. She’s slumped against the tree, too: a mirror of you, but smaller and beautiful, and she’s watching a falcon circle over the Alienage with a face like you’d think that bird flew off with her last copper. "Did you look up to him?"  

You shift. "What's it matter to you?"  

She hums, fingers interlocked like the weave of her gloves, and suddenly you feel ridiculous, like a pair of mimes sulking down the street, and a pang of nostalgia--regret?--hits you right in the chestplate.  

"It's very possible," Merrill says. "That I wanted to fix your family problems because I can’t fix mine. I don't know why yours seemed easier--Maybe because there are fewer of you? Hmm."  

"Well--What's wrong? I mean--"  

"Oh, same old. The eluvian, the--" She makes air quotes. "'Blood Magic.' My clan hates me."  

You're hit by the sharpest pang of rage.  

You're a sworn Knight-Templar--almost, anyway--close enough--and she says this to you without a thought. She doesn't even feign shame, she isn't even afraid.  

Because of Garrett, none of them expect anything from you. The bloody maleficar doesn't even show you respect.  

Merrill giggles, eyes shifting. Her hands have gone stock still. "You know, you're wearing this awful scowl."  

You didn't know.   

"Anyway," she says, voice strung a little higher. "Hawke  _did_ ask me to tell him how you were doing. I'll tell him you're looking  _very well_." She gives you a light shove.  

"I really hate that," you say, before you can stop yourself.  

Merrill's smile disappears.  

"He has everyone call him Hawke, as if he's the end all be all of it. I'm Hawke, too, you know."  

She hums thoughtfully, biting her lip, looking back at the falcon, and it occurs to you that she wants to leave very badly.   

"You know, Carver, I've wondered about that, too. Maybe I should ask him about it! 'Hawke,' I'll say. 'Just why do you have everybody call you Hawke? Is there something about your given name you find offensive?' Well, to be quite honest it offends me just a bit. It sounds just like the sound a choking Halla makes. Gah- _reht_ _._ " She shudders. "Ugh, such a shem name, so unnatural."  

"Merrill," you say. "Do you like my brother?"  

"He's as good a friend to me as anyone's ever been. He's the only friend I have here, and I'm his friend, too. What I mean to say is, he's very dear to me and I wouldn't see him hurt, or... anything else."  

"You don't know what kind of a person Garrett is. Do you want to know what kind of a person Garrett is?"  

 

* * *

 

You are five years old, and your brother is lighting your shirt on fire. This is the first of many scars he'll give you.  

You are seven years old on the streets of Amaranthine and your brother gets you and a group of street children to help him pelt rocks at the Templars outside the Chantry. They chase you down the stairs with their swords unsheathed and Garrett shouts insults back at them; you have to pull him away. You didn't know you could run so fast.  

You are nine years old; Bethany had come into her magic and you'd finally left the city you'd lived in your whole life. There'd always been talk of moving, whenever Father or Garrett had a scare, but you never thought it would actually happen. Father had rented the four of you a room at an inn, in a village on the edge of the arling, and left to find someplace for the family to live. He'd been gone half your life, doing mercenary work, but still you had the unshakable suspicion this time that he would not come back.  

Mother takes you to the local Chantry, where she stays kneeling in prayer for what feels like eternity. Bethany stays beside her but you follow Garrett to the alcove where votive candles sit under a painted sun. The skeleton's made of wood, he says, patting a support pillar. Seems unwise to keep so much fire here.  

You are nine and your brother burns down a Chantry.  

You are nine and you are chased out of town by a mob. The only things that weren't lost were what Mother had sewn into your clothes and what she had in her bag; you remember being so angry about the toy sword left behind at the inn. You didn't know back then how your father knew where to find you, or how Mother knew that the cabin in the woods that you stayed in was the home of a witch, but now you know it must've had something to do with the Mage's Collective. Father asked Garrett why he did it, but Garrett was as silent as he'd been since you fled; his mouth remained a hard line, indifferent. You thought Father would kill him.  

You are ten years old, in the farmhouse with Mother while Father works with Garrett and Bethany outside. You have some land in Lothering, a ways outside the village and shielded by the hills and trees; it's better for them. You can see your father's back through the window, and you see your brother's eyes, rapt, and you think that he looks at Father the way he's supposed to look at the image of Andraste in the Chantry. It occurs to you that your father must see this, too, and that he's okay with it.  

You're twelve. You wake in the night. On the other side of the room you think you hear your brother crying from the Fade dreams. You go to wake him up and realize he's laughing.  

You're thirteen, walking back from town. On the road, you pass a farmhand, a boy who works for the family of one of Bethany's friends, and he calls her  _witch._ Her greatest fear is that people will know just looking.  

You grab her arm and walk faster, because that's the smart thing, but Garrett stops and asks the boy to repeat himself. He does, and Garrett crosses to the boy's side of the street and beats his face in.  

The boy sobs for mercy, mercy, and beside you Bethany is whispering the same thing--Andraste's name, mercy. You just watch and wait for Garrett's hands to catch fire, or for him to cast a mind stun, but he never does. When he stands blood is painting his knuckles. 

"You should be afraid," he says. And then, "Don't spread lies."  

You are sixteen and your brother pulls a family from a burning house on the edge of town, because he's never known fear of fire. In the weeks following people swarm him whenever he's in town, calling him  _hero,_ singing his praises, and he's happier than he's ever been in his life. You can tell he's thinking,  _This is how it should be._   

You are eighteen, and Garrett tells the witch, "I want to be a dragon."  

You want to tell everyone, everyone--when a man is always joking, he's never really joking.  

Your brother is a candle left burning on the floor and people thank him for the light.  

When you're nineteen you listen to Garrett tell the elven slave that the mages here aren't that way, and you can hardly stop from rolling your eyes because there's no doubt in your mind that were he there he would've been right beside the Magisters storming the Golden City, there is not a doubt in your mind.  

And you don't believe that  _all mages_ are evil, or even that they're all dangerous, but you know your brother too well to say they should be left unchecked, and yes: you absolutely would have turned him in when you had the chance, before he got famous, but you know he'd turn abominable before he let any Templars take him, and the idea of the abomination your brother could become let loose on Kirkwall is something you are literally unwilling to imagine.  

And anyway, neither of you can die while Mother is still alive. It would break her heart.  

 

* * *

 

Merrill thanks you for the stories, takes three steps back and runs for home.

 

* * *

 

You'd seen Tranquil before, obviously--In the Gallows courtyard, selling wares, and the one Formari merchant in Amaranthine. But you knew you would feel differently as a Templar: before, they were vague warnings, like the forbidding storm clouds on the horizon of an otherwise clear day, and you could get what you needed from them and leave quickly enough for them to stay that way, barely real. As a Templar, though, they'd be most definitely real, and you knew you'd have to get bloody used to it. 

You knew about the Knight-Commander's Tranquil assistant, so when she first called you to her office you were prepared for it. You expected to see your sister--You'd gotten used to seeing her in places she wasn't, since she died, and when you opened the door you were thinking about the time you asked her if she thought being Tranquil might not be as bad as Father always said--The Formari woman looked happy enough, anyway. You weren't really thinking when you said this.  

Bethany said what Garrett always said: she'd rather die than live Tranquil, and she didn't speak to you for days. But you saw the glimmer of uncertainty in her eyes, the moment's pause. 

So you expected to see her, and you expected a killing dose of guilt, but on the day you were first called to Meredith's office her assistant was out sick and another Tranquil was filling in. When you opened the door, you were greeted by a man with dark hair and absolutely empty eyes. 

So, you saw your brother. 

A chill. A shiver. 

...And that's it. You asked him if the Knight-Commander was in and he asked you to wait. 

You watched him finish one letter, with neat, blocked handwriting, then slide the paper into a stack and start another. He even had the beard; the resemblance was fucking uncanny, objectively, and you had not even the slightest wave of nausea. This should stir some kind of emotion in you, surely? He blotted his quill and asked if he could get you something--A glass of water, perhaps? 

But it did stir something, stronger than indigestion. 

Satisfaction? 

You loved the quiet. 

And it's so fucking sad, isn't it? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote the first draft of this chapter during my first playthrough of DA2, oh my god.


	5. Almost a Bet

VII. FENRIS

Hawke's door opens when you approach it, and you reach the threshold just in time to watch the Templars pass you, one by one, on their way out. They leave the door open behind them--Not, you would wager, out of courtesy to you.  

You are not, as some claim you to be, a devout supporter of the Templar Order. You aren't a devout supporter of anything, and you've learned that there is nothing that you cannot find a thousand flaws in, but despite not doing their jobs well the idea of the Templars here--Templars who _actually police_ _mages_ \--is still breathtaking to you. After all these years you still find yourself questioning whether or not you have a critical misunderstanding, it is just so odd to be confronted with the reality of this Southern world.  

Hawke is pacing in front of the desk when you enter, and you stand at the end of the hall watching this for some minutes before he notices you.  

He gestures vaguely. "You saw them."  

You nod.  

He holds his arms out. "I'm still free."  

"For long?"  

"You know, Fenris, when I first met you I didn't understand that habit of yours, saying nebulous, ominous things all the time. 'Will you see twenty-five?' 'Let's hope your hound doesn't take after his ancestors.' 'For long?' I thought you were threatening me! Now, of course, I understand that being ominous is just your way of expressing concern. So, thank you. It warms my heart." One arm is crossed at his waist, holding the elbow of the other, and he sets a finger to his chin to punctuate the end of his speech.  

"Any time," you say. He chuckles and resumes his pacing.  

"No, it was all posturing. Old boy Cullen just needed to swing around and reassure me that he continues to hold full ownership of my ass, just making it clear that if his name isn't literally branded on there, it certainly is  _spiritually._ They know what I am, so if it was anything serious I'd be dead, wouldn't I? Just posturing, letting me know I'm on  _thin ice,_ entering my home, drinking my wine, terrifying my mother--But as long as I keep doing what they want, paying for their daily lyrium, you know, and I keep going to the parties and keeping the important people entertained enough that I'm valuable to them, and as long as the Arishok and I maintain this brimmingly tense will-we-or-won't-we relationship I've come to treasure so dearly--Well, I should be fine. They spent so much time poking around Sandal's enchantment box, I swear. I had to march the kid out and say--Look! A dwarf, a dwarf! It was bloody hilarious, you should've been there."  

"Ha-ha," you say.  

Throughout this rant, he moves restlessly through the room: picking up papers, putting them down, carding his fingers through his hair until it sticks up in weird angles. Half mad, in short; and impression not lessened by the fact that Ser Cullen seems to have interrupted him in the midst of undressing: his shirt half-laced, his boots--the enchanted pair he found in Bartrand's house which he stuffs with wool to make fit--caked with mud, breeches turned from black to grey by the dirt. And you don't want him to think you like to see him distraught, so you don't speak right away.  

He takes a half-full wine glass from the table where he keeps his poisons and throws its contents into the hearth. A flash of sparks. "You needed something? There's something I can help you with? A murder, a crime of some kind?" 

You approach him at the fire and set the signet ring on the mantle. "Unfortunately, wearing this did not persuade the Seneschal of my importance to the city. To the contrary, he accused me of stealing."  

Hawke takes the ring and frowns at the engraving of his family crest. "Always works for me."  

"He can prove nothing about the tax collector Isabela extorted, and Varric tells me he'll have a deed for me to show Seneschal Bran by the end of the month. I'm not worried. But thank you."  

He hums discontentedly and slips the ring onto his finger.  

"In Tevinter," you say mildly. "The Templars serve the Magisters, like particularly well-dressed manservants."  

"Oh, no you don't." Hawke steps back, hands raised defensively. "I see what you're doing, and I'm not falling for it. You won't get me to say anything damning today."  

"I'm not baiting you, Hawke. I just wonder if you can appreciate that these men and women are, at least, fulfilling their purpose. You wield a great deal of power. Perhaps you'll do well to remember that someone is prepared to check you, should you falter."  

"And who checks them when they falter?" He arches his eyebrows. "If they have power over the monstrously powerful mages, isn't that enough power to be at least as dangerous as me?"  

"No."  

 He snorts. "Anyway, it's not as if I  _need to be reminded._ " Scowling at the fire, all traces of humor are scrubbed from his face, much as they are when he's cast in the light of a raging inferno. "He's trying to get my blood, you know. Cullen Rutherford. For a  _phylactery._ I'm starting to wonder if I'll be able to manage a getaway, when all this comes to a head. If the Qunari ever leave, it may be my death sentence. Dark thoughts, for a Tuesday afternoon..."  

"Should the day come that you need to flee, my sword will be between you and anyone who tries to stop you."  

Hawke smiles. "You mean that, do you?"  

"Hmm. Now that I think about it, no. I take it back."  

He laughs, and you try not to look as disturbed as you feel.  

Your mind is locked on the thought of your fist punching through the chestplate of the last Templar to pass you on the way out of Hawke's house, the blonde, and his armor splintering as you wrench forth a lung or something, flesh catching on metal. Consuming regret for not having done this, and your fist held painfully closed at your side, because you understand nuance.  

You've learned, unwillingly, that "spirits" think in terms of generalities, concepts, sweeping tides of change. Anders believes you can be understood by your answer to one yes or no question. Similarly, Varric thinks a man's character can be captured in one finely chosen adjective, and this is why you avoid things like nuance around them, because you know you'll only be misunderstood.  

You can see clearly as anyone that the Templar Order in Kirkwall does not function as it should, and you truly take no pleasure knowing the conditions that mages in this city suffer--Because, shockingly, you  _are_ able to understand that not every mage in the world was your slave master. That is not, in fact, beyond your comprehension.   

Is it possible for you to want this one, individual mage to be free without supporting full revolution?  

No, no, of course not. That would make you a hypocrite, of course. Your mistake.  

You're watching Hawke twist the ring around his finger, and a vase shatters against the wall. You are drawing your sword and Hawke's hands are alight before it becomes obvious that  _he_ was the one who threw it.  

Hawke swears and his hands extinguish. "Accidental telekinesis, Maker. Haven't done that in years."  

You swear and are about to speak _,_ but a movement draws your eye to the stairway. You see Leandra Hawke's hand leave the railing, and you see her back as she rushes to a door that closes silently behind her. Hawke doesn't notice; he's still mumbling at the shattered glass:  _At least I didn't do it while the Templars were here._   

You didn't see much of him during the first years after the expedition. He returned to the city after a few weeks in hiding and both of you continued to attend Varric's Wicked Grace games, but most of his time was occupied by his newfound nobility: galas and councils, luncheons and hunting parties, the Viscount's rapidly growing dependence on Hawke's presence at his side, and, of course, the Bone Pit. As you had predicted, the rent on his freedom was no cheaper in Hightown than it was in the slums, though in Hightown the freedom came with no lack of power and luxury. Small comforts, of course, of course.  

You had no shortage of business, either: a few days after Hawke went into hiding, you ran into a few of the Red Iron mercenaries who had survived the expedition. You were at the dockside tavern you frequent: they were by the piano, heckling the player for not knowing "Hightown Races." You were at the bar, listening for news of ships from Tevinter. Ships from Tevinter never claim to be such, but the workers who unload them can usually spot the signs: accents, a staff left in the open, a lamp carelessly lit with magelight, empty cages or shackles in the hold. They usually know better than to report it, as their bosses are being paid well for their silence and the underlings are made aware that their jobs are on the line should word of the slavers reach the Templars or the Guard, but they'll still gossip about it in the tavern. You picked up this trick in Treviso, and have in this way evaded the slavehunters more than once, but though you've caught wind of several Tevinter ships arriving in Kirkwall since you've been here, only the one came for you.  

The mercenaries remembered you and wanted you to join them on a job forcing a particular merchant out of the city, and after that one job followed another. You've done work like this since you left Seheron, but until now the money left your hands nearly as quickly as you got it--Hiring your own protection, paying for rooms, paying bribes. But here you pay no rent, the city guard is on your side, and you have friends who will help you for free, should the need arise. For the first time, you're able to save money, and you find it difficult to turn down any work the Red Irons offer you. Exhausting though it can be.  

Hawke asked you to accompany him to the Qunari compound several times these past three years, but he's needed your help more since the incident with the saar-quamekand you've used this as an excuse to disentangle yourself from the Red Irons, so you have had more time and more energy, ironically, since these troubles have escalated. 

A few days ago, you made the trip over here solely to tell Hawke that if his dog were to betray him there would be historical precedent, just because you remembered the story and knew it would annoy him. You left, after that. It was the most hilarious thing you've ever done.  

 _(Father named him. Won him off some baseborn Teyrn's son, playing cards at the Dane's Refuge_ _. The bastard was mad about losing so he handed Father the runt of his dog's li_ _tter and said, 'He's no_ _prize-winner_ _, but he's yours.' So Father named him Champion to be contrary. That's how you know I'm his natural son, contrariness comes with the blood.)_   

And sometimes, you come here just to talk. Often about living in Hightown: he's been stopping nobles on the street to introduce you as the 3rd Baron of Seheron. _Land rights are passed down through victory in honor duels there,_ he says. _So he's a_ _baron_ _even though he's an elf. What an odd concept! Do you have any thoughts on that, Lady du_ _Freyin_ _?_  It's making your living situation more precarious two hundred times over, and you wouldn't dream of telling him to stop. And lately, you've been spending hours at a time in his kitchen. You were discussing how disastrously your battle with the Wounded Coast raiders had gone, he wandered to the pantry and you, trailing after him, commented on the quality of the roquefort on a shelf there. This lead to a conversation about why he always sees you buying expensive food (because you're worth it, obviously), how he used to cook for his family all the time, and finally devolved into him preparing some terrible Ferelden stew for you. Now about half your visits to his house result in you describing a dish you've tried and helping him reverse-engineer it, to horrific ends. It is a level of domesticity you had yet to experience, but he makes it casual--He tells you you're welcome here.

So you believe that you and Hawke are friends now. He's told you that he'll be by your side should Danarius ever come for you, and has gone so far to say that he will die before sees you taken captive, but those are the sort of promises you'll believe only when they are fulfilled. Though, you don't doubt he means it when he says it.  

And if your friend is a mage, so be it. You hate his magic, but magic is not the beginning and end of him. Anyway--there will be mages, and perhaps magic would not be such a curse if more of the people who wielded it were like Hawke--more concerned with the well-being of others than with how he can use them to his advantage.

"Wish I could do  _on purpose_ telekinesis like that. Can't even nudge a water glass across the table without spilling everywhere." He's standing over the mess, long, elegant plum-colored shards and white fragments like sand fanned out onto the tile, under his muddy boots, and he regards it in exactly the way you've seen him regard a freshly-charred corpse. 

Bodahn rushes out with a broom, swearing to his ancestors and fussing over is Master Hawke hurt? Or you, Master Fenris? Is everyone alright? By the Stone, I thought we were having a murder!  

 Bodahn bustles and exclaims, Hawke takes the broom and dustpan from him and the dwarf gasps, thanking him profusely and singing his praises as he runs out, back to whatever he was doing before. Hawke swipes at the glass, mumbling Bodahn's words back to himself: _a great and generous man, and he's humble to boot!_ You clear your throat. 

"Is Anders still training you?" You ask, much more composed than you would have been had you spoken when you originally wanted to, before you saw Leandra Hawke.  

Hawke sneers. "Please, spare me the condescension. It was telekinesis, not spontaneous demon summoning." He drops to one knee, brushing the glass into the pan with terse, petulant motions. "I know my magic, I'm no newsprung hedge witch. I can control myself." 

He stands, and follows your gaze to the glass in the pan. 

"I'm not good with Circle methods," he says, quickly and quietly. "Merrill's been helping me. She knows some good tricks for focus and directing energy flow." Crossing the room, he opens the drawer of a table decorated with white flowers, dumps the glass in, and shuts it. Louder, he continues, "While we're on the topic of my prodigious magical talents, I've finally given up on ever maintaining a proper spell barrier for more than four seconds at a time, so you should really spar with me, if you care at all for the current arrangement of my face. Because I really ought to get better at blocking." 

You think, _Perhaps you should be wary of the magical 'tricks' Merrill can teach you_ , but you decide that this is petty and let it go. "Luckily," you say instead. "I value this arrangement of your face highly." 

He props an elbow against the wall, hand and broomstick on his hip. "Do you? Perhaps instead of a spar we could go out on one of those little Antivan rowboats they have in the harbor now. The harbor water is still disgusting, and with the warm weather cadavers have been popping up to surface like spring daisies, but it's easy enough to _imagine_ Antiva. I could buy you alcohol, and cheeses..." He winks. 

He doesn't know when to stop. You cough to cover up your amusement. "Interesting as that sounds, I wouldn't want to get in the way of your _arrangement_ with Anders." 

Hawke blinks. "What? No, no, there's no arrangement. Maker, that was... That was _very_ short lived. That was, that was a _time_ ago, now." 

"Ah," you say, eloquently. 

"You didn't think I was...? Joking? Or...?" 

Not _entirely._ You distinctly remember being told that he'd be willing to make your problems his own, but you also remember, distinctly, asking him if anyone else had his attention and not being given a direct answer. You have a relationship built on noncommittal flirting, to be fair. 

He looks incredibly alarmed. 

Quickly, you say, "The drink I would accept, but the courting is more than I'm prepared for today." 

"Well, when you put it that way." 

"I'll have to consider it," you say, because you have enough social grace to recognize that now is not the best time to say what you're thinking, which is, _Neither of us are equipped to take on the other's problems._ _That we're friends is remarkable enough._  

Hawke shrugs, and even muddy and uncombed he's beautiful. Once in Ansberg you paid a farmer to let you sleep in his barn. It was winter, not cold enough to bring the pigs inside, but enough that it began to snow, and after an hour the farmer's wife opened the barn door and led you into the house so that you might stay in the kitchen, by the fire. She noticed you looking at a drawing, nailed precisely at each corner into the clay wall, of a spotted horse and brought out a book of her sketches to show you. You have seen frescos, reliefs in marble, and paintings so masterful that men have literally died over them, and though even you could tell that her pictures were lacking in technical skill it would be hard for you to say that they were any lesser than the masterworks. Many of them had one subject, who you recognized as her husband: the man when he was young; his hands folded over one another, the dirt at his fingernails; his back as he slept; his face smiling, flashing a crooked tooth, just as he was turning away. You were struck by the intimacy: the short strokes of the lines seemed to caress his form, and sometimes looking at Hawke you remember these sketches, which is to say, you remember something you longed for so hopelessly. 

Hawke shrugs. "Consider, or don't. Let's just make sure that we get that sparring in, because either way, I really need to work on getting stabbed less." 

 

* * *

 

You fall into step beside Isabela and say, "He just told me that children are sacrificed for a greater purpose. I need a drink."  

She glances over her shoulder at Sebastian, a ways down the path. "He stopped trying to convert me so quickly it  _almost_  stung, but the other day I heard him tell Hawke that the Maker gave him magic to test him. Hawke said, 'So if I go abominable and kill everyone, I fail the test?' Are you serious about that drink?" She pats the flask at her hip affectionately, as one might pat a lover's cheek or as Hawke might pat his dog.  

"No."  

Isabela shrugs. You, she, the Prince of Starkhaven, Merrill and Hawke are making the trek to the Bone Pit, preparing for a long day there. Though Hubert told him he was only needed at the mines for a "clerical issue" that Hubert himself was unable to resolve due to "cultural dissonance," Hawke fully expects to spend the next twelve hours murdering fade-touched monsters and clearing cave-ins with Merrill's telekinesis. Isabela came for kicks, and you and Merrill came because you theoretically own small shares in the Bone Pit. The legality of elves owning this kind of property is spotty, but Varric says it will help your case with the city regardless, and it pays Merrill's rent.  

The Prince of Starkhaven does not normally consider this kind of menial business worthy of his time, so you and Isabela have been passing time by guessing how Hawke roped him into tagging along. Just now, before he told you that the Maker allowed a child to die for your moral edification, Sebastian revealed that Hawke had begged him, hands clasping hands, to bring the light of the Maker into the dark lives of the miners by singing the Chant to them today.   

 _Enlighten them like you enlightened me,_  he said. _Dear Brother._  

You tell Isabela and the two of you share a laugh. She is also your friend, but your friendship with her is based on the understanding that were you drowning, she would only throw you a line if she was sure she wouldn't need it for herself first. She's honest, at least.  

The last of the sunrise is still touching the sky and ahead on the path, uphill, Merrill is walking heel-to-toe on a crumbling wall, staff held out for balance and singing, off-key and painfully high-pitched:  

 _Melava_ _inan_ _enansal_ _,_   

 _Ir_ _su aravel tu_ _elvaral_ _,_   

 _U_ _na_ _emma_ _abelas_ _._   

You grimace, and Isabela asks what bit you. "She should not sound that happy singing that song," you say.   

"What's it about, murder?"  

"The loss of the Dales."  

Isabela throws her head back and laughs.  

"It's morbid," you insist. "You'd think she was singing a birthday song. People sing this when their sons die."  

Isabela doubles over, clutching her gut and clutching your arm for support.  

Merrill looks over her shoulder, smiling uncertainly, and hops off the wall. "What's so funny?"  

"You are, kitten."  

Merrill brightens. "Oh," she says, and takes a quick bow before hurrying ahead to catch up with Hawke.   

Isabela, catching her breath, watches her retreat with a lingering grin, her hold on your arm melting until her hand falls to her side. She worries at the stud on her chin.  

You grimace. "You're besotted."  

She rolls her eyes. " _Pshaw,_ " she says. " _Pshaw._  Don't be silly, Fenris. Merrill is a treasure of a girl--Women as terrifying as her who've managed to keep their hearts completely intact are such a rarity--I've seen hearts like that sell for a  _fortune_  in Llomerynn--But you're giving me credit for something I'm just not capable of."  

You hum and there's a pause. Isabela stands a little straighter. She adjusts the sash at her waist and tugs at her glove, sniffing.  

"You want to kiss her," you say.  

"Oh my  _balls_ , stop it!"  

"What's stopping you, I wonder? I've never known you to be  _shy_ in your love life. Or subtle, discrete, decent--"  

"Who does Isabela want to kiss this time?" Sebastian asks blithely, behind you.  

Isabela whirls around and hisses, " _Your mother."_   

Sebastian cringes and raises his hands. "I'll just walk with them," he says, and jogs ahead past you.  

"Fuck you," she says. "Oh, stop laughing at me."  

You clear your throat and your face is made of stone. "Ask her what color her underclothes are."  

"I did, as a matter of fact. And she  _told me._ " Isabela shakes her head, a few locks of dark hair falling loose around her face. Often you catch your mind wandering to the thought of her, wondering exactly where she's been, what she's done. She speaks of Antiva and you wonder if she's ever stood where you once stood, at the window of the inn overlooking Treviso's harbor, and if she noticed the way the colors of the pier, the water, the palm leaves changed just after the rain there--or if she would've seen something there you couldn't imagine. You almost sailed to Llomerynn once but in a fit of paranoia, unable to shake the feeling of being followed, you boarded a ship bound for Wycome instead, and you wonder sometimes if you might've met her in Rivain a year early: if you might've met her in a dockside tavern and if she might've hired you to join her crew, if you would have accepted her offer or left alone; if she might've accosted your ship in Rialto Bay and left it burning on the water. You catch yourself thinking these things often and feel absurd, because you don't indulge fantasies.  

But you do.  

"Oh," Isabela says. "She and I would have a blast, but we're looking for different things. I'd break her heart, and I don't even have the coin for a  _ship._ I could never afford to pay her back for that heart, and you know that old saying, don't you? Neither a debtor nor a debtee be? Speaking of, Fenris, don't you owe me half a sovereign? You should really get better at cards."  

"Yes, change the subject. You'll have your silver by tomorrow morning, I'll win the money off Varric during the game tonight."  

"But weren't you gambling with me to win the coin you owe Varric?"  

You've picked up some bad habits over the years.  

You _can_ save money now, but that much planning ahead seems to be beyond you. 

You take a breath and take in the scenery: rocks, faded patches of grass, a few dead trees, half-eaten breakfasts and well-used handkerchiefs scattered about the path and a growing sense of uneasiness carried along with the dust on the air. You're almost at the mine. You tell Isabela, "You have pretty eyes."  

She claps her hands together, snickering. "When I imagined you hoisting me by my own petard, Fenris, I imagined something  _very_ different, but  _that_ was almost as good. Not half a sovereign good, but still."  

"Curious that you're afraid of hurting the blood mage, not the other way around."  

"No, because I'mnot  _you_."  

You almost laugh. " _What_ are you talking about?"  

She smirks, and she throws more verve into her strut, because once again, she is on top. Whenever Isabela gets the upper hand--in conversation, in cards, in a duel to the death with one of the thousand people who point at her on the street and draw their weapons, for reasons she never really manages to explain afterwards ( _Oh, I probably killed his mother during a mutiny three years ago in a little cave full of ancient elven treasure on an_ _island with no name_ _near_ _Estwatch_ _, or something_ _totally random like that_ )--it doesn't look like a triumph, it looks like the restoration of the natural order. The Maker said: And there will be light, and there will be dark, and there will be Isabela on top.  

Not that she doesn't have to make some low blows to get there. 

"That's exactly what's keeping you from  _your_  swarthy apostate, isn't it?" She says, lingering over the description. When Hawke feels the call to the dramatic, he illustrates and punctuates with his hands. Isabela doesn't need to use that much effort to catch the eye. Her eyes do the work for her, and her voice pulling you, as fingers wrapping around your wrist or a shove at your back, in whatever direction strikes her fancy: the skill, Varric has told you, of a superior player. "You're afraid--of being  _burned._ By the heat of his love... And by his nasty little habit of combusting when he gets excited."  

"You have reality mixed up with dirty novels again."  

"Don't play dumb with me, Fenris, it doesn't suit you. The two of you have been dancing around each other for three years now, like chickens before a cockfight. Ooh, I didn't even mean to do that. That was a good one, wasn't it?"  

"Cockfight. Bravo."  

She plucks at the gold around her neck, preening. "Mmm, let me savor that." She stops walking and closes her eyes; you tell her to quit it and she holds up a hand: _W_ _ait, not yet_. Ahead, standing on the rail of a cart track, Merrill calls back to ask what's the matter.   

"Okay, I'm done." Isabela's eyes flash open and she starts forward again; you're a beat behind and have to rush after her.  

A conversation with Isabela can only remain pleasant so long. You're grinding your teeth.  

"Anyway," she says. "You probably want to bone him more than I want to bone Merrill. All I mean is, we both have our reasons for keeping our distance. Mine is financial, yours is... sanguineous."  

"I wasn't aware we were  _competing_ over who was the greater coward in love."  

"Don't say that word, sweetheart, it makes me break out."  

"Hawke isn't a blood mage," you say, because the distinction is important to you and she seems to be missing it, and because you will slander Hawke ruthlessly to his face but around others you cannot shake the urge to champion his honor.  

She rolls her eyes. You will find it hard to believe her, for the rest of your life, when she says that she didn't discover what Hawke was on her own, long before the truth of it came out once and for all. She'll say she asked him not long after they met, he said he wasn't, and she considered the matter settled. After all, why would he lie? She'd told him she saw no problem with it, and it's not as if he would be the only maleficar in the band of outlaws he'd gathered around himself, or even the most outrageous.  

Hawke lied because he, unlike Anders and Merrill, was ashamed. Isabela was smart enough to see this, and you will always believe that she lied to you that day at the quarry.  

 "Small potatoes," Isabela says, gathering her hair back and avoiding the sight of you. "You can barely hate forbidden magic more than you hate sanctified magic, can you?"  

"True enough," you say, foolishly. "But I'm not afraid."  

"Oh? Then what's stopping you?" 

You briefly consider parroting her own answer back to her, but that feels cheap. You're fairly sure would be a lie, anyway.

You cannot, however, think of any way to phrase the truth that doesn't sound like  _I'm afraid._

(Years later you'll look back and realize that all you had to tell her was "I don't want to," and she would've let it go.) 

But at that moment, a spider the size of a hog leaps to the ground before you, off a nearby ledge. You unsheath your blade and swing at it, but it scurries back too quickly. It unhinges its jaw, and you'd certainly be sprayed with some unpleasant venom were Isabela not there to plant a dagger between its eyes, and now to drive another into its underside.  

It still writhes, so you hack a few legs off for good measure. When you're done, you nod to Isabela. She salutes you.  

Ahead, two more spiders are caged in the unburied roots of a nearby evergreen, roasting. Hawke is clutching his chest, wheezing, and Merrill is patting his arm consolingly. Not far away, a crash of rocks and splintering wood sounds, accompanied by a cacophony of screams. You catch the flash of Sebastian's armor as he dashes around the turn in the path, out of sight, to the rescue. Beside you, Isabela twirls a dagger by the hilt and looks down the path reluctantly.  

"Princey can probably handle whatever's up there on his own, don't you think?"  

Over a fresh wave of screaming, you hear the distinctive sound of Sebastian asking the Maker to preserve him.  

"Hey, you back there! Queen of the Eastern Seas!" Hawke is squinting back into the light, taking a few tentative steps. He's trying to see if either of you are hurt. 

"What is it, Archduke of Shit Mountain?" Isabela calls back, and immediately you see Hawke's shoulders relax. 

"Your mages, I mean,  _halberd-_ _wie_ _lder_ _s,_  are dying up here! Do you have any of your famous thin veil-resistance tonic?"  

"You mean the booze?"  

"Yeah!"  

"Of bloody course, but you don't drink!"  

"That's right! Why am I such a drag, again?"  

A burst of flame sparks over the crest of the hill. An arrow sails over it, and the distant sound of Sebastian calling for assistance sails with it. The four of you gaze uneasily at the hill, none of you moving or showing any willingness to do so. 

"Oh!" Merrill perks up, bouncing on her heels. "Oh, if Hawke's the archduke, does that make Fenris and me the duke and duchess? Since we own shares?"  

With a fondness that almost erases the bloodstains on her tunic, Isabela goes to her and slings an arm around her waist. "Merrill, you are the  _queen_  of Shit Mountain."  

"We're both queens, then!"  

Hawke kicks at the smoldering remains of a spider, which breaks and crumbles, and, staff in hand, and meanders to the corner. "We're all a bunch of queens," he says. "Except Sebastian, who is, of course, a prince--And oh, would you look at that, the queendom's overrun with spiders."  

 

* * *

 

In fact, the house was never Danarius's.  

When he writes his book, Varric will tactfully play down how affected you were by this revelation. He found out sometime during the process of acquiring a deed for you to show the Seneschal, and he told you casually, as a bit of trivia, while you are playing Wicked Grace in his room at the tavern: that the house you've been living in, the  _reparations_ you seized, is the summer home of some Tevinter merchant. You got up and left. Everyone was there, they were all witness to this: you, losing control once again. But that was one embarrassment stacked on countless.  

Once, you told Varric that you dance through the halls of this house when you're alone. The reality is not something you would have others know.  

You should leave this place behind.  

You should clean it, at least.  

"This place," you told Hawke, months ago--almost a year ago. "It grounds me. I remember my purpose here. I know what I'm doing."  

 _I know who I am here,_ you did not say.  

Hawke asked you what exactly your purpose was. What were you doing here, then? You told him: waiting to kill Danarius.  

There is a portrait of Danarius here, why would a merchant have a portrait of Danarius? Were they allies? Did Danarius have it shipped here with the hunters, was he actually planning on staying here?  

Does it fucking matter?  

You've never danced because you don't know how it's done. You are standing at the head of the merchant's stairs, digging your nails into the varnish. You cannot move. If you did, you would destroy something, and the thought of another cabinet toppled and cracked to pieces at your feet makes your head ache.  

The west wing is so thoroughly ground to wreckage that you can hardly make your way through it during your nightly patrols. You moved on to the east wing last year. You'd walk along the walls, feeling the weight of an old sword, or a maul, or once a tall candelabra because it was handy--Anything with a certain weight you would carry and stalk through the rooms, glass and plaster cutting your feet, waiting for inspiration to strike.  

Hours. Days.  

Tapestries slashed, limbs rent off heavy mahogany chairs with blows of your heel, carpets, coats, paintings methodically cut into strips and left like animal hide to dry, tables scarred and hacked at until the blade dulled, table collapsed in the middle, so many feathers on the floor you might've ripped them from the wings of a thousand birds. What was made of glass didn't stand a chance.  

Two years ago, to pay off a debt, you sold one of the serving platters--silver, the engraving was a wyvern hunting scene. This got you two sovereigns, and that was only the first offer from the first merchant you showed it to.  

What a grand loss this mansion was! To the _merchant_ _!_   

You'd feed the hearth with paneling torn from the walls and think, he can't have this, he can't have your skin, and he can't have you. Only now are the implications of that comparison disturbing you. 

You want to fight with someone. You want to go find Anders and tell him all of this, so he'll mock you-- _Why do you want him to look for you, Fenris? Why are you so hungry for Danarius's attention? I thought you wanted freedom!_   

You want someone to mock you so you can say to them--Perhaps, perhaps you are  _upset_ because he destroyed your life, your mind, every part of you--your body is alien, your skin is killing you, everything you grasp for crumbles in your fist--he destroyed you and continues to destroy you and you,  _you_ are no longer worth the expense of a bounty. What he did to you is your whole life, and he has already forgotten. You are not a spot on the sun of his happiness.  

His every second should be ten times the agony he gave you, but  _he_ is free.  

Why can't you move on, Fenris? 

How can you? How can you? 

There is only one way you know to erase memories, and that, too, belongs to him. 

So you are in the mansion, you are in the room where you keep your bed, you're holding the lute you strum to pass time, to remember songs you heard in the market--This thing you bought for yourself, this thing of yours--and without a thought in your mind you dash it against the wall.  

You shouldn't be alone right now.  

 

* * *

 

When you raise your fist to the door you hesitate before you can connect with the wood; it takes you an age, pacing like a caged beast before his door, starting, stopping, your hands shaking beyond your control before you can make yourself do it--And waiting to be let in, you almost disappear yourself anyway. Bodahn comes to the door. 

Bodahn prattles enough that it isn't necessary for you to speak, and if he notices your reticence, he says nothing of it. You seat yourself at a bench in the foyer and have a moment of confusion before you understand that the dwarf is directing you to the library.  

This house is beginning to feel safer, to you, than your own room. Your hand lingers, in passing, over the back of a chair, and your fingers know the pattern of the wood engraving, and being surrounded by these colors, the maroon, the oak, the grey of the masonry--this makes your breath come easier. Your heart stills in your chest.  

Hawke is in his armchair, flipping restlessly through a book. He says, without looking up, "Did you run into Cullen on the way over?"  

You didn't. You decide not to answer. He continues, "It's very funny that Templars use blood magic to catch blood mages, when you think about it. The point gets lost somewhere."  

You don't know what he's talking about and he doesn't clarify. He closes his book and asks why you're here. You expected him to ask why you walked out of Varric's, but he seems to have forgotten.  

You aren't sure what you want here. Comfort? Revenge, absolution? Something Hawke and Hawke's house can't give you, surely.  

You are standing in his doorway, you're looking at one of the shelves, trying to look interested in that while you paw around your skull for something to say. For the life of you, it's as if you lost the language. For much of your life you did not speak.  

You look back at Hawke and he's standing; something in his face has softened. He sets a hand on the back of his chair and draws a breath--he is also staring off at the shelf. "Besides the games at Varric's... and me dragging you to the Bone Pit, of course...You don't go out much, Fenris, do you?"  

That easily, you find your voice. Aggravation does more to loosen your tongue than wine. "Is this some concern of yours?"  

He cocks his head, looking so uncomfortable as to be in pain. "I never liked going out much, either. That was the best thing about the farm, there was enough space to mind your own business, and the work was quiet. Now I have Orlesians and Templars parading through the house at any given moment, and my job is talking to people. And killing people, of course, which is almost as bad."  

"Why? Why are you telling me this?"  

"Well, it made sense to me why you'd want to leave, at Varric's. Anders might've thought it was a bit strange, but you know, sometimes a man just needs to be by himself. So, if I were you, I wouldn't worry about looking strange. I didn't think it was strange, at least."  

He's completely off the mark, but at the same time he isn't wrong. It's so much, you almost laugh. "You think I worry about looking strange?"  

He finally looks at you, your spikes and the luminescent blue tattoos lining your entire body. He opens his mouth, then closes it. "You probably don't, you're right. I have no idea what I was on about, ignore me."  

You finally enter the room, you stand at the hearth marveling at him, and then you're crying.  

You can't fathom why. It's involuntary as a cough; you aren't even upset. You press your hand to your eyes and Hawke swears.  

Some nights, laid awake in pain, in the five hundredth hour, tears have stung your eyes. Especially on those nights you went without food, especially when you drifted off only to have the pain jolt you awake.  

Once, you attended a lord's dinner party with Hawke. He asked you to come for his own sanity, because you would be enough scandal to satisfy the nobles for the night and he wouldn't have to put much work into being outrageous, and because he thought you'd enjoy the cook's work, but you don't remember the food at all. After the host bid everyone gather round and sit in his lavish embroidered chairs, his fine silken chase longue with the carved mahogany feet and other ostentatious et ceteras, a woman came to stand before you. Her feet were bare, her hands were round and set finger-to-finger against one another, and she sang an aria in Tevene. You drew a breath and tears were dripping from your eyes, it came upon you so suddenly.  

You haven't sobbed, your voice gripped and pulled from your throat, this helpless exhaustion, since you left Seheron.  

After the slaughter, after you ran from your master, you wandered the jungle for two days. Thoughts ran over your head like rain.   

You were in the dirt, between the roots of a great, smothering tree, and you sobbed like wood burning until you were like wood burned away, smoke and the charcoal shape of what was there. You couldn't fathom why.  

And you only began remembering a week or so after you received your markings, but you were told that you wept then as well. You wept so senselessly, so savagely, they thought the ritual had driven you mad.  

Hadriana told you that to humiliate you. Oddly enough, because you hardly knew what pride was then anyway.  

You are sobbing in Hawke's library and it might be for the memories you kept, something ironic like that, or it could be the first stage of lyrium dementia. You almost want it to be the latter. The colors of this place no longer feel comforting--they are as alien to you as your skin, and you are imagining Bodahn on the other side of the door, you are imagining Hawke, seeing you this way. You see his hand from the periphery of your vision and you let him touch your shoulder: this is almost more than you're capable of.   

But you are capable.  

The truth of the matter is (you realize this, a flare that starts in your chest and blooms, a wildfire, to fill you to the eyes, amidst the tears, amidst the despair), you are capable of doing whatever you decide you want. 

If you had the power to guard Danarius's life, aren't you at least as powerful as him?


	6. Between Control & Disaster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief discussion of homophobia in this chapter & super brief use of the Q slur.

VIII. FENRIS

You don't let him court you, in the end. He'll bemoan this lost opportunity a thousand times over the years, he'll be convinced he would've been a prodigious suitor. He'll describe flowers to you--flowers outside your home, arranged on the walkway to spell dirty words. Beautiful, hand-picked flowers! And you will remind him that you couldn't read then, and he'll sidestep that and move on to describing love songs composed spontaneously, inspired by the passions of the moment, and you won't remind him that he can't sing or compose to save his life because he sung those songs for you anyway, and you liked them anyway. They all had the ring of a bawdy limerick, but the words were sweeter. Generally.  

You don’t let him court you. This is how you kiss him:  

The night you cry, you sit across from him at a table in his library and he gives you cup after cup of tea until morning. First he asks you a thousand questions, bouncing his leg-- 

In Seheron, are the jungle canopies as thick as they say? 

Has your own heartbeat ever frightened you? 

I've never seen a dog in the Fade, but do you think they dream anyway?  

Do you really believe in the Maker? You said you don't, but you do, don't you? 

And you ask him to stop, and he does. You ask him to tell you something, anything, and he tells you something about forgetting he was an apostate on the docks in Amaranthine, and it goes on for hours and you hear maybe half of it, maybe less. You're watching his hands move as he talks and you think, 

 _Take it._  

But you don't. You're watching his lips move and he smiles, one crooked tooth, and you think, 

 _Kiss him._  

But you don't. You are warm and half gone listening to him, and this, too, is a form of intimacy: too tired to run, not really wanting to, you let it happen to you. He grows distracted by his own story and stares off, and his hand on the table, you set yours just beside it. Skin just barely not touching skin, but there is a static in your markings, and something else. A wish. 

You imagine his hands in charcoal, his back when he sleeps, having him that way. You already know what he looked like when he was young—rainsoaked, seconds from sputtering out. 

You count the times that happiness has been at your fingertips and you did not reach. 

You do not reach. 

You recall watching the Fog Warriors, how one would snatch the other like a sparrow out of the air, and they kissed, and to this day you are still watching them in impotent awe. 

In the night you wrestle yourself--immovable, a ghost, bodyless--with the thought running powerless over you and over you, _I am capable if I want it, I can learn._ In the morning you sleep, and when you wake, you find him at the docks: standing on the end of a pier, openly grimacing at the Gallows rising out of the bay, twisting his staff in his hand. 

You kiss him then. 

You reach out and touch his neck. He doesn't push you away, his hair is coarser than you expect, and you pull him in and kiss him. He says, "I was hoping you'd do that," smiling like a fool, his eyes cast down. A thousand kisses into the future, he will tell you directly that he didn't think you were truly interested in him until that moment.  

This, the mercurial duality of his confidence, will baffle you in the coming days. He will strike down revenants and Varterels and brush off praise, saying the act wasn't worthy. Whenever someone tells him a thing is impossible he'll say, "Try me," and still he will anxiously look to you before speaking, he'll offer you a hundred small, anxious kisses, as if to check that you still wanted them, and Anders will ask him to try this spell or that and he'll laugh and say, _Don't make me embarrass myself_ —He will baffle you.   

Because Hawke is never able to decide whether he's secretly the best man ever to live or the worst—his estimation can never last long in between—and he can never settle on the judging criteria, so if he ever does decide on a measure, the very order of the numbers he tallied with is liable to change the next morning. Glimpses of perspective are frequently life-threatening. For someone as wildly unsteady, within himself, as Hawke is, being given something so fragile as your trust and your heart will be so terrifying it will be, frequently, life-threatening. 

You won't know this. You'll marvel, but you don't learn to understand him, this first time you're together, and he proves again and again that he can only make guesses at how you work.  

Your own doubts will center primarily on how long you can keep this up. Ultimately, it's a little more than one week.  

 

* * *

 

You have him pinned against the wall of his library when Leandra Hawke knocks on the door. This has happened once before in the three days you've been together, and this time there's no panic, only a rush: in seconds, you have his shirt fastened and straightened; he smooths down your hair and gives you a thumbs up—all evidence of debauchery erased.  

He stands at the rail and invites her in. She begins to tell him about the young woman she spoke to at the haberdasher—A familiar name to them, by the sound of it, Michelle Lafaille—and you move to stand beside Hawke, you nod to her, and a strange look overcomes her face. She breaks off her story and excuses herself, the door clicking shut behind her. Hawke cocks his head and looks at you, and you start to ask him if he knows what that was about, when he covers his mouth with his hand.  

"I didn't even see it," he mumbles, eyes wide on you, with the panicky laugh of a man with a pike through his center. "Andraste's tits."  

You look down at yourself, but you can see nothing indecent about your person. He holds his hand out near your neck, you don't push him away and he drags a finger down your skin. It comes away red. You close your eyes.  

"Perhaps I was rubbing kaddis on myself to train your dog to like me more."  

He laughs harder, high-pitched and grimacing. You bow your head and grin, despite yourself.  

He's trying to keep your being together from her because his marrying, continuing the line, and assuming the Amell title is important to her, and he plans on doing none of those things. They have not always had a good relationship, he says, but they're closer now than they've ever been, and he doesn't want to alienate her again "just yet."  

She's completely unaware that he's queer as a three-sided sestarius. Or, to use the euphemism you once heard her use, "a man with _particular_ tastes." You once had tea with them, not long after they moved into the estate, and she told you how happy it made her that Garrett was inviting his friends home more.  

"I'm only just getting to know all of you. He would never have anyone over to my brother's—Well, except for that nice elven girl. She visited quite a bit, didn't she, Garrett?"   

She smiled knowingly. Hawke stared straight ahead and drank his tea.  

He worries that this hurts you, being kept secret, which is one of the hundred incomprehensibly sentimental worries he has for you. Especially incomprehensible since Leandra is part of a decreasing minority of people in the city ignorant of your relationship with him. Even the nobility are aware, and you know this both because of the simpering glances they've started giving you, on the street—as opposed to the huffing refusal to acknowledge your presence which you've grown accustomed to—and because you've kissed him in the Viscount's Keep.  

He tells you that in Ferelden, you wouldn't get stoned for it—loving another man--but you were not supposed to let others know. No holding hands, no attending parties together, nothing stated outright and no affection openly given that others could not politely turn a blind eye to, or you would find yourself swiftly shunned. It was only a scandal if you were _indiscreet._   

He asks you if it's different in Tevinter. Yes, you tell him. In Tevinter, one does get stoned. You leave it at that.  

"Well," Hawke says, rummaging through a drawer near a bookshelf—the one where you note, fondly, that he has shelved the copy of the Chant of Light he doesn't seem to remember stealing from you—for a handkerchief to give you. "I suppose all there is to do is wait and see what comes of that. We're truly the two most discreet men in Thedas, aren't we?"   

"Truly," you say, and you kiss him. Your mouth lingers over his mouth; his hand settles at your back like a sparrow landing at a branch, and he smiles.  

This is your favorite thing about this romance, because it is the easiest thing you have ever done with him. And because you were not sure you were capable of it, but you are very, very capable of it.   

When you're this close to him, you are sure that there is no wall between the two of you. You almost believe, in corner of your mind that dreams about pirates, that you can read his thoughts: you're sure there is no part of him that can remain a mystery to you for long, nothing that can creep behind you and sink its fangs in. You can almost forget that he is surely holding back as much of himself from you as you are from him.  

Someone knocks at the door. Hawke squeezes his eyes shut; you kiss him again. You linger over the thought of your book in his library for years, his fingers that are always rough and dry like tinder grazing over the spine; him, flipping through the pages at night with that confused downward tilt of his mouth.  

Which is fantastic, by the way. His mouth, hot on your ear, whispering the words of that song: _bird on a briar, bird, bird on a briar._   

"Messere? Master Hawke, are you still in? Master Hawke?"  

You've always admired his face, and just now you noticed a scar on one cheekbone that you find incredibly charming, so you kiss him there as well. You let your lip drag over his skin, and for just a second, his grip on your hips tightens.  

He lets go. You drop to his neck and find his pulse.  

He pulls back and whispers, " _You're murdering me._ _"_   

You say, "Not yet."  

"Messere, if you and Master Fenris are still in, I'm very _very_ sorry to interrupt, but a messenger from the Viscount is at the door and he's _quite_ insistent he delivers his message to Master Hawke _himself_."  

He buries his face in the crook of your neck and tells you that he's died. He's dead, he tells you: passed on, void-bound, one with the deep green.   

You say, "Come to my house in an hour,"and you push him away. You snatch your _Book of Shartan_  off the desk as you pass and when you hear him scoff, incredulous, as you start down the stairs, you laugh openly. 

Because in three days, you've kissed Hawke, you've finally accepted his offer to teach you to read, and you've cleaned your house. Just the front rooms, but all the same, something you never expected to do--And none of it has resulted in your downfall. Your heart has been running so fast, for 72 consecutive hours, that the wear may eventually result in your downfall.  

But you're so fucking happy. 

You think this is happiness. 

It could be terror. 

 

* * *

 

You answer the door with a bottle of wine and a glass, for him, in your hand, the glass held by a single finger around the stem. He was taking longer than expected, so you opened it without him, and you've been thinking to yourself, pacing around your house: this is what it means to live, and I am living—of your own accord, without permission, with no need to wait for anyone or anything but your lover to call. You've been giddy, all night, thinking of that, and this: I am _happy._ And you are—you aren't relieved, you aren't comfortable, you aren't content--you're happy, a warmth in your chest like a fever you had when the Fog Warriors found you, the fever you thought would leave your brains dripping out your ears, so perfect and terrifying it makes you want to board a ship and leave this place forever.  

You've been pacing through your house with feet light like the dancers you once saw balance on the tips of their toes, and you can hardly read a word but yesterday he showed you how to sign your name, and he signed his name beside it and you have this piece of paper and you were sitting at your desk just smiling at it. You felt completely absurd until you reminded yourself that this is what lovers do, and that is what you are.

Marvel at the thought.

You answer the door, and Hawke is there with a Knight-Templar. The blade of mercy engraved on the Templar's cuirass flickers lifelike in the torchlight. Hawke's hand, fidgeting, flickers at his side.  

You stand there dumbly a moment. The Templar starts to speak, and Hawke speaks over him.  

"This gentleman," Hawke says, arms stiff at his sides. "This absolute prince of a man escorted me here. He saw me, an illustrious citizen of Kirkwall, benefactor of the Templar Order, walking without a blade with which to defend myself against the creatures that prowl these darken'd streets, and insisted upon escorting me to my destination. A journey of exactly five minutes. And so here I am. Who _needs_ the city guard with Templars like this!" He turns to look directly at the Templar. "Am I released into this man's custody, Ser?"  

The Templar inhales, slowly. He doesn't otherwise acknowledge Hawke; he addresses you: "It's Messere Fenris, isn't it?"  

You nod, slowly. Hawke crosses his arms and bows his head, snickering to himself.  

He's a young man, clean-shaven and fair-haired, and his eyes are as milky pale as the rest of him. With his eyes somewhat bulging, naturally wide, and his eyebrow set high and left ungroomed he appears perpetually shocked, and he meets your eyes directly when he speaks. "Are you expecting this man?"  

You nod again. Hawke says, _No, he's never seen me before in his life._   

"Some of my brothers and sisters in arms think you're too much like a mage to be left to your own devices," the Templar continues. _Are you fucking serious?_ Hawke says, a vicious edge in his voice. The man clenches his jaw, and says to you, "I think they're stupid. You can't do proper magic or deal with demons any more than I can, but if what they say is true you can fight magic at least as well as the Knight-Captain. Your tattoos," he says, with a constrained wave of the hand toward your person. "They're like lyrium philters but stronger, aren't they?"  

You'd think they have a comparable effect, yes. But you see the sparkle in his eye, and you can tell what he's thinking, so you say, "No." You form the word carefully, like exact change.   

He tilts his head, and he doesn't believe you, but you think he understands what you're really saying. "Serah Hawke is not to leave the Amell Estate after dark. Knight-Commander's orders."  

"You can't be serious! Since when?"  

His voice remains at a steady, low tone. "Knight-Captain Cullen told you this himself, Serah Hawke."  

"He can't have expected me to take that _seriously!_ "  

"I'm supposed to take him to the Gallows," he says.  

Hawke doubles over laughing.  

"But you haven't," you say. Deep in your chest, your heart is racing. You want Hawke behind you, behind your locked door, but he isn't yet.  

"Just so. Are you willing to take responsibility for him tonight?"  

"Careful," Hawke says to you, wagging a finger and looking off at the torch beside the door, mouth twisted in distracted disdain. His hand is paling to blue, and frost curls at the air around it. "There will be consequences for failure, to be sure."  

"There will be," the unblinking Templar tells you. "For both of us."  

You are still standing with one hand on the door, one hand holding the alcohol, and you're wearing your jerkin half-buttoned because you were not expecting this. But you know what you look like, even without spikes and armor.  

You lean in and meet his pale bewildered eyes. You press on the word like a bruise: "Yes," you say. "I'll take him."  

He nods. "I'll tell Knight-Commander Meredith. Good night, Messere."  

You understand that you've agreed to more than the night. You imagine your new signature on an unwritten contract--you'll worry about it later.  

You grab Hawke by the arm and roughly pull him inside; he stumbles, then yanks out of your grip and waltzes in, chin high.  

You shut the door and slide the chain lock.   

He opens and closes his fists, flames bursting from his palms each time. He runs his hands through his hair and water pours down his face, down his neck, and he exhales frost. He paces in a circle, drops his hands to waist level and rolls his shoulders; fire runs from his fingers up his arms in rings.  

This is why he has no hair on his arms, by the way.  

He runs his hands through his hair again and steam rises; you say, "You're going to light yourself on fire."  

"Oh, no. No, as long as there's no spark it's fine. It's all about holding back the spell just enough. See?" He holds up a poker-red hand and twirls it around for your examination, suddenly nonplussed. Hawke turns and wanders into the main hall.  

You see a loose tile hovering above the floor and stamp it down with your foot.  

He steps back into the doorway, hands aflame. "This is too much? I killed the mood, didn't I?"  

You snatch a loose plank of wood as it flies past. "Stop doing that!"  

His hands snuff to a smolder and he throws them in the air, turning back to the main hall. A puddle, under the gaping hole in the ceiling, freezes over as he walks past. A vase wobbles and topples over.  

You throw the wood to the ground. "Control yourself!"  

"I'm completely fine!" he says, and squeezes his eyes shut, and sits down at the bottom of the stairs. A breeze stirs the hanging tapestries.  

"I'm sorry," he says.   

You step over the ice and stand before him. You think: sit beside him, but you can't bring yourself to do it. The bottle and glass are still in your hand, and you consider dropping them to see them shatter. You don't.  

You're thinking of the Altus apprentice you killed in Minrathus, and the telekinesis he used: much more skilled, more vicious. You're thinking of the different ways a blade slides through the cracks in plate armor, blood on the Templar's mouth and his bulging eyes cold. You're trying to think of a song Hawke sang for you yesterday; all you can recall is _Our kind is come of love,_ _love thus craves, blissful bird, have pity on me._   

You say, "When did Cullen give you a curfew?"  

"When he brought the enchanter over to make my phylactery," he says.  

You sit beside him. He moves his hand to take yours but kills the action. You seize his hand and grasp it. He only ever touches you like a wild thing he's afraid will dash away; his hands are always a breath on your skin, a hesitant smile to herald— _I'm a friend, not a threat._ And this suits you, you like that he takes nothing for granted—You like this, but it frustrates you—You hate being the feral creature he meets in the woods, because you're not sure if he hesitates to reach out because he's afraid of being bitten.  

And you aren't a feral dog. You don't want to be.  

Your touch isn't tender or comfortable, but you have him now.   

"I'm helping Anders smuggle people out of the Gallows," he says. It's a challenge, for some reason—For some reason, he's challenging you to throw him out, leave him.  

"I know," you say, because you do. "But I am glad you told me." Your fingers are going cold from coiling around his so tightly.  

The day after you kissed him, you told him what to expect from you. You told him that you murdered the Fog Warriors. That was more difficult than you expected, so you drank more, and somehow found yourself playing three card monte with Hawke. You lost well over a dozen times and accused him of using magic to cheat before he showed you the trick—two cards picked up with one hand, and the top card thrown down before the bottom, tricking the eye. 

( _I once cheated a man out of ten sacks of barley_ _this way,_ he confessed. _I once was cheated out of ten inches of hair this way,_ you confessed. _Wait, what,_ he said.)  

Then, you told him that you're dying. He didn't smile winningly and say, "We're all dying, Fenris," which is what you imagined him saying when you rehearsed this in your mind, before he came over. He cocked his head and waited for you to explain. You did.  

He wants to try and recreate the spell Danarius used to maintain your markings. You told him there was no point, he couldn't, but you could see that he hadn't given the idea up.  

So you told him, then, what to expect if Danarius ever came for you.   

"He's just a man," Hawke said. "Even blood and lyrium can only go so far."  

He clearly had no idea how far blood and lyrium could actually go. Few people outside the Imperium do, you've noticed, even the Templars and Circle mages who like to think that they do. To them lyrium is more precious than diamonds, blood so powerful that one drop is frightening in its potential. They couldn't imagine a world where lyrium is served as an hors d'oeuvre, where a child's neck is cut and drained to the last drop for a party trick.  

Even if they could imagine, they wouldn't understand.  

So you told him, "Look out the window," and you asked him, "What is the first thing you see?"  

He struggled with the latch, and after wrenching the shutters free he squinted at the sky. "The sun?"  

"That's what he is," you said. "He's the sun in a room. Defeat it, then."  

He frowned and closed the shutters. You smiled.  

"Well, I suppose I didn't blot it all out, did I? Could always get some heavy curtains."  

"That's not a victory, Hawke. That's hiding."  

"See if I know the difference," he said, chuckling and quickly growing dark. "There is the fact that he isn't really the sun."  

"He isn't. But you should know what you've agreed to do," you told him, and he still doesn't, but you tried.  

You would guess that he did not think to tell you what to expect from him until just now, at this moment.   

He's looking at your hands together, still refusing to apply pressure: his fingertips barely lay on your skin, and he starts to speak but kills the breath.   

You think he was going to tell you about what he did when he was twenty, but in the end he wouldn't tell you that for another three days.  

He looks up and says, "We should try to fix that one of these days."  

A drop of rain falls between you, and the storm begins as a drizzle.  

He raises your hand to his mouth and his lips burn on each of your knuckles in turn, the scratch of his beard makes you shiver, and the magic on his breath runs so cold down the lines on your hand, down your arm, it gives you vertigo. You still can't decide,  _weightlessness_ or  _massive gravity_.

Whatever either of you had planned for the night, the silent agreement seems to be to abandon it. You weren't expecting the wash of relief.  

He offers to go, you tell him to stop being foolish. He sleeps on the mattress downstairs, and when you close the door to your room you slide the lock into place on reflex. You shake your head and start to undo it, but lower your hand and leave it, instead.  

 

* * *

 

It rains all night, and when you unlock the door to offer him coffee (A drink that comes from Seheron, but you didn't know this until you were there, watching the Fog Warriors brew it. It is a luxury drink in Tevinter, something Magisters serve each other with great ceremony, in careful doses, to sharpen their minds; you pay enough gold monthly to rethatch your ceiling in emeralds so that you can drink it with your stale morning bread, and you drink it the way the Fog Warriors did, unfiltered) you stand at the landing and see that the downstairs has flooded. When you call for Hawke, no one answers, and when you look for him (water up to your ankles, you step on broken glass and leave ribbons of blood) you find him fast asleep on the straw mattress, soaked through with water like ice.  

You nudge him with your unbleeding foot, and after a moment, he starts awake.   

You give him the coffee. He takes a drink and asks you, "This is much stronger than tea, isn't it? This keeps you awake?" He drains the cup, gags, and asks for more.  

You feel like nothing about this romance is happening normally. You think this suits you.  

He pats the soggy mattress and laughs when you sit down beside him. He starts to sing, his rumbling voice hitting the notes like keys banged on a broken organ: _blissful bird, take pity on me or dig, love_ _, dig for me my grave,_ and you hum along with him, your hands warm around your mug.  

You're going to tell him, "Stop worrying about being strange, I like you this way." 

" _I am so blithe, so bright, bird on briar, when I see that handsome in the hall. He is_ —Shit, Fenris, are you bleeding?"  

 

* * *

 

Hawke is at the bar trying to order something edible. You can hear him repeating, "No, you can't boil that. No, Corff, don't boil it. Listen to me, Corff. Corff, just take some lard and—No, Corff, listen—Don't boil it—"  

You're watching him, you're watching Ser Roderick sit, awake, at his table by the door, and you're watching Hawke's hands, waiting for him to drop his elbows onto the counter as his hands light in flames and he says, _Roast it_ _, Corff!_    

Varric eyes you over his tankard.   

"What?" you say.  

"You're sure about this?"  

"Yes."  

"You know what's good for you."  

"I do."  

"It looks like a kind of suicide pact to me, but I've been wrong before."  

"And you'll be wrong a thousand times again, I'm sure."  

"And I'll drink to that." Varric's mouth quirks into a one-sided smile, and he raises his glass to you.  

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Hawke rest his hands on the counter. He says, softly, "Corff, please. Just roast it."  

 

* * *

 

You're in his library, waiting for him, when Leandra Hawke taps her knuckles against the open door and, smiling gently, closes it behind her.  

"Fenris," she says. "Do you mind my stepping in here a moment?" 

You tell her, "Not at all." This is about the kaddis, obviously. You wonder if she's going to ask you to be more "discreet." 

Leandra Hawke, a petite woman with fair skin, bright eyes, and an intelligent, studied grace to every movement, at first glance resembles her oldest child not a whit. You always notice her hands—wide and finely built, each finger is like the leg of a spider when she sets them, one by one, on the surface of a table, or laces each together to join at the second knuckle: hands made for harpsichords, small stitches, careful brushstrokes; nothing she does is hurried, and every breath is either held or sighed. Hawke's hands are strong, but lack dexterity, and his every movement is a jolt, a manic dash and a flood of words, or complete stillness and nothing at all.  

He is bold where she is subtle, thunderous where she is subdued, but they look exactly the same when they are watching you.  

Her eyes track you as she walks, but never quite connect with yours, and a faint smile sits on her face that does nothing to soften her gaze—You understand why her crest, not only her husband's name, is a bird of prey. 

You'd been at the desk, looking over the page of _A Slave's Life_  Hawke left open as well as what appears to be a children's primer—A few pieces of parchment stitched together, in large, printed letters you could read the title: _The_ _Nug_ _in a Rug, a Parable._ "Parable" being a surprisingly common word in these lessons. 

Hovering near the fire, her eyes drift to the books. 

"He's taking these reading lessons very seriously. I've never seen him spend so much time in front of a book." 

You clear your throat and say, "Yes." 

Varric told you yesterday that Hawke's been rushing around Hightown in a frenzy, making and keeping appointments with governesses to ask them how they teach letters. The gossip is, apparently, that he has not one but four bastards being sent to him in four different carriages—from the four corners of the map, one is to suppose—and that these appointments are interviews, so that he may discover the best teacher in Kirkwall for his illicit brood. None of the governesses want to be hired, however, by the depraved mage in the old Amell mansion, so each interview is an exercise in buffoonery as each woman puts her all into appearing completely vapid, blundering, and cruel, and Hawke stares on in wide-eyed horror when he asks how best to help a pupil memorize vocabulary and the governess takes out a paddle to demonstrate. 

You believe that at least the premise of this story is true. 

And you know that there are people willing to teach you this who don’t need to say the words aloud when they read. Varric noticed long before Hawke did, when you declined his request to look over the latest chapter of his serial and tell him if it was "too raunchy or just raunchy enough." Merrill, certainly, would've been thrilled to play teacher for you. 

But you don't want them to teach you. You want Hawke, who struggles as much as you do. You want Hawke, who hires governesses to teach him how to teach you and never makes you feel like a fool. 

"And do you feel like you're making progress, Fenris?" 

"I'd think so, yes." 

"That's very good."  

She is standing before the mantle, eye-to-eye with a portrait, the size of one of her songbooks, of her dead husband. Her smile is a shade on her lips. 

"Fenris," she says, no longer watching you. "Might I ask you something? What do _you_ think it says of me that I abandoned all of--" She waves an elegant hand out, at the mansion and everything it must mean to her. "--This. All of my old friends seem to have an opinion, but their viewpoints are very... limited. And uniform." 

"You were brave. You knew what you wanted, and you pursued it." 

"You're too kind to me. Perhaps I was brave, but more than that, I was a romantic." 

You don't know what you're supposed to say to this. You're hoping to hear the door, to hear Hawke announce himself and barrel in, but all you hear is the fire crack and the silence of a woman whose son has had his tongue in your mouth but whom you've never before exchanged more than five words at a time with. 

"When I met Malcolm, I was as suspicious of magic as any young lady raised in the Chant is. More so, perhaps, because it was in my blood, and so my family went to great lengths to distance ourselves from it. I was firmly conservative, I mean to say. Until I met Malcolm—and just like that, I wasn't." 

You're worrying your thumb over the desk, you realize, over the rough spot where the varnish is singed away. Leandra takes the portrait in her hand and runs her thumb over the frame. 

"It was impossible to love Malcolm and not love his magic," she says. "His magic was in every part of him." 

Feeling awkward, you move closer to her, and she holds the portrait to the side so that you can better see it. It's easier for you to see the differences between the man in the painting and Hawke, now: there is a reserve in the set of Malcolm Hawke's shoulders, a quiet self-assurance in the curve of his smile—the angles of his face are harsher. The shift of his eyes tells you that he is waiting, politely but impatiently, for the painter to tell him he can stand. 

"I was fascinated by his nightmares," she says, hushed. "I'd lay next to him and watch him toss and turn, murmur and moan. He was in a whole separate world, a place I'd only ever glimpse. I tried to imagine what he was doing, on the other side—what the demons looked like, what they were saying to him. But I was always so distant from the reality." Her eyes shift to you and away. "But Garrett's quite different about all that, isn't he? The Fade dreams?" 

You hum, distracted by Malcolm Hawke's painted glance. "It's almost as if he's awake, talking to them." 

A pause. 

Your eyes meet, and she quickly looks away. 

"In the Deep Roads," you explain, too rushed. "I camped with him. Them. We all slept together. Separately." 

She nods as you speak, looking somewhere to your left. "Of course, of course! Why, you must know I wasn't insinuating anything, Fenris! Anyway—" 

She sets the portrait back on the mantle and briskly smoothes her hands over her skirt; smiling pointedly at you, she says, "What I mean to say is that I wasn't truly being brave when I ran away with my husband. I really didn't know what I was getting into, at the time. The little girl in me thought, deep, deep down, that if I loved him enough, the world would stop trying so hard to destroy him. To destroy him, me, our children, everything he touched."  

Her skirt sweeps the floor when she turns, a sound like ashes scattering. Leandra Hawke crosses to the table and pours herself a glass of the deep red wine that you told her son, yesterday, was made from the blood and tears of slaves. You think of him laughing when you smiled against the glass, and the glass hitting your teeth, while you watch her drink with her back to you.  

She looks over her shoulder, face in profile. "But I will tell _you_ what I can't tell my friends, because they can't understand—If I met Malcolm again today, I'd choose him again. Him, and everything that came with him. Perhaps _that_ choice would be brave. Yes?" She smiles, her lips slightly darkened. 

You're too bewildered to speak. 

She taps her forehead with her five fingers and waves her hand over her heart. "Oh, where are my manners. Would you like a glass?" 

Hawke's mother presses a wineglass into your hand and touches your arm, telling you that she so enjoys having you around the house more lately, and she hopes you know you're welcome, because she's really starting to see you as part of the family.  

"Anyway..." She drains the last sip of her wine, and she smiles when you hear the front door opening, the dog barking frantically and Hawke's booming voice. "It's about time I told Garrett not to worry about my playing matchmaker for him anymore. It just occurred to me how silly it was of me to try and arrange a marriage for him, considering my own history. Yes?" She chuckles, like a trill of bells, and this is the first time you've heard her laugh. 

She glides out as Hawke barrels in, her hand landing gently on his shoulder in passing. He asks you what the two of you were talking about, and you really don't know what to say. 

 

* * *

 

Cullen smiles. "Hawke."  

Hawke smiles. "Cullen."  

Hawke's smile twitches while he curls his fingers at his side, trying to snuff the flame curling up his gauntlet. Cullen stares straight through him, eyes glassy and smile unmoving.  

"Any luck on that favor Knight-Commander Meredith asked of you, last week, Serah Hawke?"  

"Hmm?"  

"You must recall, Serah Hawke."  

"That lyrium?"  

"Yes, Serah Hawke, you have it."  

"Well, well, nothing yet. I have a few leads, you know. A few connections left over from my dark past. My greatest secret... My life as a smuggler. I trust that my secret's safe with you, Templar Cullen."  

"This may take you by surprise, Serah Hawke, but 'Templar' isn't conventionally used as an honorific. I understand where your confusion comes from."  

"Well, Cullen, I'm always glad to lend a loving hand of aid to the Templar Order in Kirkwall. Seeing as, of course, my very own brother is _ensconced_ within your ranks."  

"What a curious turn of phrase."  

"Stop me if this is too far, Templar Cullen, but you look almost the picture of the ghoul I shanked during the Blight. You must really be hitting that lyrium! Maker, it's hard on your kind, by the looks of it."  

"By 'my kind' you mean Knight-Templars, of course. I am well, Serah Hawke, and I thank you for your concern, especially when you look on the brink of death yourself. I noticed those bandages on your arms, Messere—One of your many foes must have gotten the better of you. Was it a spider this time?"  

"Ah, not this time. My mabari's claws. Vicious little bugger, absolutely bloodthirsty. You're a Ferelden, Cullen! You must have had a mabari back home, strong Templar man like you."  

"I can't say I did."  

"Really? You see, they only choose the strongest, most intelligent, most valiant masters. I just assumed... Well, _hmm..._ No, you're right, I see it now. Definitely not a mabari man."  

"Is there a reason for this visit, Hawke?"  

"Yes," you say. " _Is_ there a reason?" 

"Oh," Hawke says, and he waves toward the entrance to the Templar Hall. "Just dropping something off with ol' Solivitus, then swinging by Meredith's office to deliver the blood money. Or should I say, _lyrium_ money, eh? Speaking of, Cullen—Have you Templars found any way to shut down blood magic yet? Or is it still wholesale slaughter, whenever draining their mana or strengthening the veil doesn't quite do the trick?" 

"Oh, nothing yet, Hawke. Nothing yet." Cullen smiles and walks away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song in this chapter is Bryd One Brere/Bird on a Briar.


End file.
